WORKS   BY 
GEORGE  JOHN   ROMANES,  M.A.,  LL.D.,  F.R.S. 


DARWIN,  AND  AFTER  DAE  WIN :    an  Exposition 
of  the  Darwinian  Theory,  and  a  Discussion  on  Post-Darwinian 
Questions. 
PART  I.    THE  DARWINIAN  THEORY.    With  Portrait  of  Darwin 

and  125  Illustrations.     Crown  Svo,  ios.  6d. 
PART    II.     POST-DARWINIAN    QUESTIONS  :    HEREDITY    AND 
UTILITY.    Crown  Svo. 

AN  EXAMINATION   OF  WEISMANNISM. 

Crown  Svo,  6s. 

MIND  AND  MOTION  AND  MONISM.    Crown  Svo. 

THOUGHTS  ON  RELIGION.  Edited,  with  a  Pre- 
face, by  CHARLES  GORE,  M.A.,  Canon  of  Westminster. 
Crown  Svo,  4$.  6d. 


JJon&on 
LONGMANS,    GREEN    &    CO. 


MIND   AND    MOTION 


AND 


MONISM 


BY  THE   LATE 


GEORGE  JOHN  ROMANES,  M.A.,  LL.D.,  F.R.S. 

HONORARY  FELLOW  OF  GONVILLE  AND  CAIUS  COLLEGE,   CAMBRIDGE 


NEW    YORK 
LONGMANS,    GREEN,    AND    CO. 

AND  LONDON 
1895 


SRLF 
URL 


PREFACE 


OF  the  contents  of  this  little  volume  the  section 
on  Mind  and  Motion  which  forms,  in  accordance 
with  a  suggestion  of  the  author's,  a  general  intro- 
duction, was  delivered  at  Cambridge  as  the  Rede 
Lecture  in  1885, and  was  printed  in  the  Contemporary 
Review  for  June  in  that  year.  The  chapter  on  The 
World  as  an  Eject  was  published,  almost  as  it  now 
stands,  in  the  Contemporary  Review  for  July,  1886. 
A  paper  on  The  Fallacy  of  Materialism,  of  which 
Mr.  Romanes  incorporated  the  more  important  parts 
in  the  Essay  on  Monism,  was  contributed  to  the 
Nineteenth  Century  for  December,  1882.  The  rest 
was  left  in  MS.  and  was  probably  written  in  1889 
or  1890. 

The  subjects  here  discussed  frequently  occupied 
Mr.  Romanes'  keen  and  versatile  mind.  Had  not 


2054123 


vi  Preface 

the  hand  of  death  fallen  upon  him  while  so  much 
of  the  ripening  grain  of  his  thought  still  remained 
to  be  finally  garnered,  some  modifications  and 
extensions  of  the  views  set  forth  in  the  Essay  on 
Monism  would  probably  have  been  introduced. 
Attention  may  be  drawn,  for  example,  to  the 
sentence  on  p.  139,  italicized  by  the  author  himself, 
in  which  it  is  contended  that  the  will  as  agent  must 
be  identified  with  the  principle  of  Causality.  I  have 
reason  to  believe  that  the  chapter  on  The  World 
as  an  Eject  would,  in  a  final  revision  of  the  Essay 
as  a  whole,  have  been  modified  so  as  to  lay  stress 
on  this  identification  of  the  human  will  with  the 
principle  of  Causality  in  the  world  at  large — 
a  doctrine  the  relation  of  which  to  the  teachings 
of  Schopenhauer  will  be  evident  to  students  of 
philosophy. 

But  the  hand  of  death  closed  on  the  thinker  ere 
his  thought  had  received  its  full  and  ultimate 
expression.  When  in  July,  1893,  I  received  from 
Mr.  Romanes  instructions  with  regard  to  the 
publication  of  that  which  now  goes  forth  to  the 
world  in  his  name,  his  end  seemed  very  near  ;  and 
he  said  with  faltering  voice,  in  tones  the  pathos 
of  which  lingers  with  me  still,  that  this  and  much 
besides  must,  he  feared,  be  left  unfinished.  He 
suggested  that  perhaps  I  might  revise  the  parts  in 


Preface  vii 

the  light  of  the  whole.  But  I  have  thought  it 
best  to  leave  what  he  had  written  as  he  wrote 
it,  save  for  quite  unimportant  emendations,  lest  in 
revising  I  should  cast  over  it  the  shadow  of  my 
own  opinions. 

It  only  remains  to  add  that  the  conclusions 
reached  in  this  Essay  should  be  studied  in  con- 
nection with  the  later  Thoughts  on  Religion  which 
Canon  Gore  has  recently  edited. 

C.  LL.  M. 

BRISTOL, 

May,  1895. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

MIND  AND  MOTION i 

MONISM         .     ' 39 

INTRODUCTION 41 

CHAPTER  I.  SPIRITUALISM 47 

„        II.  MATERIALISM 55 

„      III.  MONISM 79 

„       IV.  THE  WORLD  AS  AN  EJECT    .       .  88 
„        V.  THE  WILL  IN  RELATION  TO  MATE- 
RIALISM AND  SPIRITUALISM       .  119 
„      VI.  THE  WILL  IN  RELATION  TO  MONISM  129 


MIND    AND    MOTION 


[REDE    LECTURE,    1885.] 

THE  earliest  writer  who  deserves  to  be  called 
a  psychologist  is  Hobbes  ;  and  if  we  consider  the 
time  when  he  wrote,  we  cannot  fail  to  be  surprised 
at  what  I  may  term  his  prevision  of  the  most  im- 
portant results  which  have  now  been  established 
by  science.  He  was  the  first  clearly  to  sound  the 
note  which  has  ever  since  constituted  the  bass,  or 
fundamental  tone,  of  scientific  thought.  Let  us 
listen  to  it  through  the  clear  instrumentality  of  his 
own  language  : — 

'  All  the  qualities  called  sensible  are,  in  the  object  which 
causeth  them,  but  so  many  motions  of  the  matter  by  which 
it  presseth  on  our  organs  diversely.  Neither  in  us  that  are 
pressed  are  they  anything  else  but  divers  motions  ;  for 
motion  produceth  nothing  but  motion.  .  .  .  The  cause  of 
sense  is  the  external  body  or  object,  which  presseth  the 
organ  proper  to  each  sense,  either  immediately,  as  in  taste 
and  touch,  or  mediately,  as  in  hearing,  seeing,  and  smelling ; 
which  pressure,  by  the  mediation  of  the  nerves,  and  other 
strings  and  membranes  of  the  body,  continued  inwards  to 

E 


2  Mind  and  Motion. 

the  brain  and  heart,  causeth  there  a  resistance,  or  counter- 
pressure,  or  endeavour.  .  .  .  And  because  going,  speaking, 
and  the  like  voluntary  motions,  depend  always  upon  a  pre- 
cedent thought  of  whither,  which  way,  and  what ;  it  is 
evident  that  the  imagination  [or  idea]  is  the  first  internal 
beginning  of  all  voluntary  motion.  And  although  unstudied 
men  do  not  conceive  any  motion  at  all  to  be  there,  where 
the  thing  moved  is  invisible  ;  or  the  space  it  is  moved  in  is, 
for  the  shortness  of  it,  insensible  ;  yet  that  doth  not  hinder, 
but  that  such  motions  are.  These  small  beginnings  of 
motion,  within  the  body  of  man,  before  they  appear  in 
walking,  speaking,  striking,  and  other  visible  actions,  are 
commonly  called  ENDEAVOUR  V 

These  quotations  are  sufficient  to  show  that  the 
system  of  Hobbes  was  prophetic  of  a  revelation 
afterwards  declared  by  two  centuries  of  scientific 
research.  For  they  show  how  plainly  he  taught 
that  all  our  knowledge  of  the  external  world  is 
a  knowledge  of  motion ;  and,  again,  that  all  our 
acquisitions  of  knowledge  and  other  acts  of  mind 
themselves  imply,  as  he  elsewhere  says,  some  kind 
of '  motion,  agitation,  or  alteration,  which  worketh 
in  the  brain.'  That  he  conceived  such  motion, 
agitation,  or  alteration  to  be,  from  its  extreme 
minuteness,  '  invisible '  and  '  insensible,'  or,  as  we 
should  now  say,  molecular,  is  likewise  evident. 
I  can  therefore  imagine  the  delight  with  which  he 
would  hear  me  speak  when  I  say,  that  it  is  no 
longer  a  matter  of  keen-sighted  speculation,  but 
a  matter  of  carefully  demonstrated  fact,  that  all 
our  knowledge  of  the  external  world  is  nothing 

1  Leviathan,  pt.  i.  chaps,  i.  and  vi. 


Mind  and  Motion.  3 

more  than  a  knowledge  of  motion.  For  all  the 
forms  of  energy  have  now  been  proved  to  be  but 
modes  of  motion ;  and  even  matter,  if  not  in  its 
ultimate  constitution  vortical  motion,  at  all  events 
is  known  to  us  only  as  changes  of  motion  :  all 
that  we  perceive  in  what  we  call  matter  is  change 
in  modes  of  motion.  We  do  not  even  know 
what  it  is  that  moves  ;  we  only  know  that  when 
some  modes  of  motion  pass  into  other  modes,  we 
perceive  what  we  understand  by  matter.  It  would 
take  me  too  long  to  justify  this  general  statement 
so  that  it  should  be  intelligible  to  every  one  ;  but 
I  am  confident  that  all  persons  who  understand 
such  subjects  will,  when  they  think  about  it,  accept 
this  general  statement  as  one  which  is  universally 
true.  And,  if  so,  they  will  agree  with  Hobbes  that 
all  our  knowledge  of  the  external  world  is  a  know- 
ledge of  motion. 

Now,  if  it  would  have  been  thus  a  joy  to  Hobbes 
to  have  heard  to-day  how  thoroughly  he  has  been 
justified  in  his  views  touching  the  external  world* 
with  no  less  joy  would  he  have  heard  that  he  has 
been  equally  justified  in  his  views  touching  the 
internal  world.  For  it  has  now  been  proved,  beyond 
the  possibility  of  dispute,  that  it  is  only  in  virtue 
of  those  invisible  movements  which  he  inferred 
that  the  nervous  system  is  enabled  to  perform  its 
varied  functions. 

To  many  among  the  different  kinds  of  movement 
going  on  in  the  external  world,  the  animal  body  is 
adapted  to  respond  by  its  own  movements  as  best 
B  2 


4  Mind  and  Motion. 

suits  its  own  welfare  ;  and  the  mechanism  whereby 
this  is  effected  is  the  neuro-muscular  system. 
Those  kinds  of  movement  going  on  in  the  external 
world  which  are  competent  to  evoke  responsive 
movements  in  the  animal  body  are  called  by  physi- 
ologists stimuli.  When  a  stimulus  falls  upon  the 
appropriate  sensory  surface,  a  wave  of  molecular 
movement  is  sent  up  the  attached  sensory  nerve 
to  a  nerve-centre,  which  thereupon  issues  another 
wave  of  molecular  movement  down  a  motor  nerve 
to  the  group  of  muscles  over  whose  action  it 
presides  ;  and  when  the  muscles  receive  this  wave 
of  nervous  influence  they  contract.  This  kind  of 
response  to  stimuli  is  purely  mechanical,  or  non- 
mental,  and  is  ordinarily  termed  reflex  action. 
The  whole  of  the  spinal  cord  and  lower  part  of  the 
brain  are  made  up  of  nerve-centres  of  reflex 
action  ;  and,  in  the  result,  we  have  a  wonderfully 
perfect  machine  in  the  animal  body  considered  as 
a  whole.  For  while  the  various  sensory  surfaces 
are  severally  adapted  to  respond  to  different  kinds 
of  external  movement — the  eye  to  light,  the  ear  to 
sound,  and  so  on — any  of  these  surfaces  may  be 
brought  into  suitable  relation  with  any  of  the 
muscles  of  the  body  by  means  of  the  cerebro-spinal 
nerve-centres  and  their  intercommunications. 

So  much,  then,  for  the  machinery  of  the  body. 
We  must  now  turn  to  consider  the  corporeal  seat 
of  the  mind,  or  the  only  part  of  the  nervous  system 
wherein  the  agitation  of  nervous  matter  is  accom- 
panied with  consciousness.  This  is  composed  of 


Mind  and  Motion.  5 

a  double  nerve-centre,  which  occurs  in  all  verte- 
brated  animals,  and  the  two  parts  of  which  are 
called  the  cerebral  hemispheres.  In  man  this 
double  nerve-centre  is  so  large  that  it  completely 
fills  the  arch  of  the  skull,  as  far  down  as  the  level 
of  the  eyebrows.  The  two  hemispheres  of  which 
it  consists  meet  face  to  face  in  the  middle  line  of 
the  skull,  from  the  top  of  the  nose  backwards. 
Each  hemisphere  is  composed  of  two  conspicuously 
distinct  parts,  called  respectively  the  grey  matter 
and  the  white  matter.  The  grey  matter  is  ex- 
ternal, enveloping  the  white  matter  like  a  skull- 
cap, and  is  composed  of  an  inconceivable  number 
of  nerve-cells  connected  together  by  nerve-fibres. 
It  is  computed  that  in  a  human  brain  there  cannot 
be  less  than  a  thousand  millions  of  cells,  and  five 
thousand  millions  of  fibres.  The  white  matter 
is  composed  only  of  nerve-fibres,  which  pass  down- 
wards in  great  strands  of  conducting  tissue  to  the 
lower  centres  of  the  brain  and  spinal  cord.  So  that 
the  whole  constitutes  one  system,  with  the  grey 
matter  of  the  cerebral  hemispheres  at  the  apex  or 
crown. 

That  the  grey  matter  of  the  cerebral  hemispheres 
is  the  exclusive  seat  of  mind  is  proved  in  two  ways. 
In  the  first  place,  if  we  look  to  the  animal  kingdom 
as  a  whole,  we  find  that,  speaking  generally,  the 
intelligence  of  species  varies  with  the  mass  of  this 
grey  matter.  Or,  in  other  words,  we  find  that  the 
process  of  mental  evolution,  on  its  physical  side, 
has  consisted  in  the  progressive  development  of 


6  Mind  and  Motion. 

this  grey  matter  superimposed  upon  the  pre-existing 
nervous  machinery,  until  it  has  attained  its  latest 
and  maximum  growth  in  man. 

In  the  second  place,  we  find  that  when  the  grey 
matter  is  experimentally  removed  from  the  brain 
of  animals,  the  animals  continue  to  live  ;  but  are 
completely  deprived  of  intelligence.  All  the  lower 
nerve-centres  continue  to  perform  their  mechanical 
adjustments  in  response  to  suitable  stimulation  ; 
but  they  are  no  longer  under  the  government  of 
the  mind.  Thus,  for  instance,  when  a  bird  is  muti- 
lated in  this  way,  it  will  continue  to  perform  all  its 
reflex  adjustments — such  as  sitting  on  a  perch, 
using  its  wings  when  thrown  into  the  air,  and  so 
forth  ;  but  it  no  longer  remembers  its  nest  or  its 
young,  and  will  starve  to  death  in  the  midst  of  its 
food,  unless  it  be  fed  artificially. 

Again,  if  the  grey  matter  of  only  one  hemisphere 
be  removed,  the  mind  is  taken  away  from  the 
corresponding  (i.  e.  the  opposite)  side  of  the  body, 
while  it  remains  intact  on  the  other  side.  For 
example,  if  a  dog  be  deprived  of  one  hemisphere, 
the  eye  which  was  supplied  from  it  with  nerve- 
fibres  continues  able  to  see,  or  to  transmit  im- 
pressions to  the  lower  nerve-centre  called  the  optic 
ganglion  ;  for  this  eye  will  then  mechanically 
follow  the  hand  waved  in  front  of  it.  But  if  the 
hand  should  hold  a  piece  of  meat,  the  dog  will 
show  no  mental  recognition  of  the  meat,  which  of 
course  it  will  immediately  seize  if  exposed  to  the 
view  of  its  other  eye.  The  same  thing  is  found  to 


Mind  and  Motion.  7 

happen  in  the  case  of  birds  :  on  the  injured  side 
sensation,  or  the  power  of  responding  to  a  stimulus, 
remains  intact ;  while  perception,  or  the  power  of 
mental  recognition,  is  destroyed. 

This  description  applies  to  the  grey  matter  of 
the  cerebral  hemispheres  as  a  whole.  But  of  course 
the  question  next  arises  whether  it  only  acts  as 
a  whole,  or  whether  there  is  any  localization  of 
different  intellectual  faculties  in  different  parts  of 
it.  Now,  in  answer  to  this  question,  it  has  long 
been  known  that  the  faculty  of  speech  is  definitely 
localized  in  a  part  of  the  grey  matter  lying  just 
behind  the  forehead  ;  for,  when  this  part  is  injured, 
a  man  loses  all  power  of  expressing  even  the  most 
simple  ideas  in  words,  while  the  ideas  themselves 
remain  as  clear  as  ever.  It  is  remarkable  that  in 
each  individual  only  this  part  of  one  hemisphere 
appears  to  be  used  ;  and  there  is  some  evidence  to 
show  that  left-handed  persons  use  the  opposite  side 
from  right-handed.  Moreover,  when  the  side  which 
is  habitually  in  use  is  destroyed,  the  corresponding 
part  of  the  other  hemisphere  begins  to  learn  its 
work,  so  that  the  patient  may  in  time  recover  his 
use  of  language. 

Within  the  last  few  years  the  important  dis- 
covery has  been  made,  that  by  stimulating  with 
electricity  the  surface  of  the  grey  matter  of  the 
hemispheres,  muscular  movements  are  evoked  ;  and 
that  certain  patches  of  the  grey  matter,  when  thus 
stimulated,  always  throw  into  action  the  same 
groups  of  muscles.  In  other  words,  there  are 


8  Mind  and  Motion. 

definite  local  areas  of  grey  matter,  which,  when 
stimulated,  throw  into  action  definite  groups  of 
muscles.  The  surface  of  the  cerebral  hemispheres 
has  now  been  in  large  measure  explored  and 
mapped  out  with  reference  to  these  so-called  motor- 
centres  ;  and  thus  our  knowledge  of  the  neuro- 
muscular  machinery  of  the  higher  animals  (including 
man)  has  been  very  greatly  furthered.  Here  I  may 
observe  parenthetically  that,  as  the  brain  is  in- 
sentient to  injuries  inflicted  upon  its  own  substance, 
none  of  the  experiments  to  which  I  have  alluded 
entail  any  suffering  to  the  animals  experimented 
upon ;  and  it  is  evident  that  the  important  infor- 
mation which  has  thus  been  gained  could  not  have 
been  gained  by  any  other  method.  I  may  also 
observe  that  as  these  motor-centres  occur  in  the 
grey  matter  of  the  hemispheres,  a  strong  probability 
arises  that  they  are  not  only  the  motor-centres,  but 
also  the  volitional  centres  which  originate  the 
intellectual  commands  for  the  contraction  of  this 
and  that  group  of  muscles.  Unfortunately  we 
cannot  interrogate  an  animal  whether,  when  we 
stimulate  a  motor-centre,  we  arouse  in  the  animal's 
mind  an  act  of  will  to  throw  the  corresponding 
group  of  muscles  into  action  ;  but  that  these  motor- 
centres  are  really  centres  of  volition  is  pointed  to 
by  the  fact,  that  electrical  stimuli  have  no  longer 
any  effect  upon  them  when  the  mental  faculties  of 
the  animal  are  suspended  by  anaesthetics,  nor  in  the 
case  of  young  animals  where  the  mental  faculties 
have  not  yet  been  sufficiently  developed  to  admit 


Mind  and  Motion.  9 

of  voluntary  co-ordination  among  the  muscles  which 
are  concerned.  On  the  whole,  then,  it  is  not  im- 
probable that  on  stimulating  artificially  these  motor- 
centres  of  the  brain,  a  physiologist  is  actually 
playing  from  without,  and  at  his  own  pleasure,  upon 
the  volitions  of  the  animal. 

Turning,  now,  from  this  brief  description  of  the 
structure  and  leading  functions  of  the  principal 
parts  of  the  nervous  system,  I  propose  to  consider 
what  we  know  about  the  molecular  movements 
which  go  on  in  different  parts  of  this  system,  and 
which  are  concerned  in  all  the  processes  of  reflex  ad- 
justment, sensation,  perception,  emotion,  instinct, 
thought,  and  volition. 

First  of  all,  the  rate  at  which  these  molecular 
movements  travel  through  a  nerve  has  been 
measured,  and  found  to  be  about  100  feet  per 
second,  or  somewhat  more  than  a  mile  a  minute, 
in  the  nerves  of  a  frog.  In  the  nerves  of  a  mammal 
it  is  just  about  twice  as  fast ;  so  that  if  London 
were  connected  with  New  York  by  means  of 
a  mammalian  nerve  instead  of  an  electric  cable, 
it  would  require  nearly  a  whole  day  for  a  message 
to  pass. 

Next,  the  time  has  also  been  measured  which  is 
required  by  a  nerve-centre  to  perform  its  part  in 
a  reflex  action,  where  no  thought  or  consciousness 
is  involved.  This  time,  in  the  case  of  the  winking 
reflex,  and  apart  from  the  time  required  for  the 
passage  of  the  molecular  waves  up  and  down  the 
sensory  and  motor  nerves,  is  about  ^  of  a  second. 


io  Mind  and  Motion. 

Such  is  the  rate  at  which  a  nerve-centre  conducts 
its  operations  when  no  consciousness  or  volition  is 
involved.  But  when  consciousness  and  volition  are 
involved,  or  when  the  cerebral  hemispheres  are 
called  into  play,  the  time  required  is  considerably 
greater.  For  the  operations  on  the  part  of  the 
hemispheres  which  are  comprised  in  perceiving 
a  simple  sensation  (such  as  an  electrical  shock)  and 
the  volitional  act  of  signalling  the  perception,  cannot 
be  performed  in  less  than  T\  of  a  second,  which  is 
nearly  twice  as  long  as  the  time  required  by  the 
lower  nerve-centres  for  the  performance  of  a  reflex 
action.  Other  experiments  prove  that  the  more 
complex  an  act  of  perception,  the  more  time  is 
required  for  its  performance.  Thus,  when  the 
experiment  is  made  to  consist,  not  merely  in 
signalling  a  perception,  but  in  signalling  one  of  two 
or  more  perceptions  (such  as  an  electrical  shock  on 
one  or  other  of  the  two  hands,  which  of  five  letters 
is  suddenly  exposed  to  view,  &c.),  a  longer  time  is 
required  for  the  more  complex  process  of  dis- 
tinguishing which  of  the  two  or  more  expected 
stimuli  is  perceived,  and  in  determining  which  of 
the  appropriate  signals  to  make  in  response.  The 
time  consumed  by  the  cerebral  hemispheres  in 
meeting  a  '  dilemma '  of  this  kind  is  from  \  to  ^ 

—  *  O 

of  a  second  longer  than  that  which  they  consume 
in  the  case  of  a  simpler  perception.  Therefore, 
whenever  mental  operations  are  concerned,  a  re- 
latively much  greater  time  is  required  for  a  nerve- 
centre  to  perform  its  adjustments  than  when  a 


Mind  and  Motion. 


ii 


merely  mechanical  or  non-mental  response  is 
needed ;  and  the  more  complex  the  mental  opera- 
tion the  more  time  is  necessary.  Such  may  be 
termed  the  physiology  of  deliberation. 

So  much,  then,  for  the  rate  at  which  molecular 
movements  travel  through  nerves,  and  the  times 
which  nerve-centres  consume  in  performing  their 
molecular  adjustments.  We  may  next  consider 
the  researches  which  have  been  made  within  the 
last  few  months  upon  the  rates  of  these  movements 
themselves,  or  the  number  of  vibrations  per  second 
with  which  the  particles  of  nervous  matter  oscillate. 

If,  by  means  of  a  suitable  apparatus,  a  muscle  is 
made  to  record  its  own  contraction,  we  find  that 
during  all  the  time  it  is  in  contraction,  it  is  under- 
going a  vibratory  movement  at  the  rate  of  about 
nine  pulsations  per  second.  What  is  the  meaning 
of  this  movement  ?  The  meaning  is  that  the  act  of 
will  in  the  brain,  which  serves  as  a  stimulus  to  the 
contraction  of  the  muscle,  is  accompanied  by  a 
vibratory  movement  in  the  grey  matter  of  the  brain ; 
that  this  movement  is  going  on  at  the  rate  of  nine 
pulsations  per  second  ;  and  that  the  muscle  is  giving 
a  separate  or  distinct  contraction  in  response  to 
every  one  of  these  nervous  pulsations.  That  such 
is  the  true  explanation  of  the  rhythm  in  the  muscle 
is  proved  by  the  fact  that  if,  instead  of  contracting 
a  muscle  by  an  act  of  the  will,  it  be  contracted  by 
means  of  a  rapid  series  of  electrical  shocks  playing 
upon  its  attached  nerve,  the  record  then  furnished 
shows  a  similar  trembling  going  on  in  the  muscle 


12  Mind  and  Motion. 

as  in  the  previous  case ;  but  the  tremors  of  contrac- 
tion are  now  no  longer  at  the  rate  of  nine  per 
second  :  they  correspond  beat  for  beat  with  the 
interruptions  of  the  electrical  current.  That  is  to 
say,  the  muscle  is  responding  separately  to  every 
separate  stimulus  which  it  receives  through  the 
nerve ;  and  further  experiment  shows  that  it  is 
able  thus  to  keep  time  with  the  separate  shocks, 
even  though  these  be  made  to  follow  one  another 
so  rapidly  as  1,000  per  second.  Therefore  we  can 
have  no  doubt  that  the  slow  rhythm  of  nine  per 
second  under  the  influence  of  volitional  stimulation, 
represents  the  rate  at  which  the  muscle  is  receiving 
so  many  separate  impulses  from  the  brain:  the 
muscle  is  keeping  time  with  the  molecular  vibra- 
tions going  on  in  the  cerebral  hemispheres  at  the 
rate  of  nine  beats  per  second.  Careful  tracings 
show  that  this  rate  cannot  be  increased  by  increasing 
the  strength  of  the  volitional  stimulus  ;  but  some 
individuals — and  those  usually  who  are  of  quickest 
intelligence— display  a  somewhat  quicker  rate  of 
rhythm,  which  may  be  as  high  as  eleven  per  second. 
Moreover,  it  is  found  that  by  stimulating  with 
strychnine  any  of  the  centres  of  reflex  action, 
pretty  nearly  the  same  rate  of  rhythm  is  exhibited 
by  the  muscles  thus  thrown  into  contraction  ;  so 
that  all  the  nerve-cells  in  the  body  are  thus  shown 
to  have  in  their  vibrations  pretty  nearly  the  same 
period,  and  not  to  be  able  to  vibrate  with  any 
other.  For  no  matter  how  rapidly  the  electrical 
shocks  are  allowed  to  play  upon  the  grey  matter 


Mind  and  Motion.  13 

of  the  cerebral  hemispheres,  as  distinguished  from 
the  nerve-trunks  proceeding  from  them  to  the 
muscles,  the  muscles  always  show  the  same  rhythm 
of  about  nine  beats  per  second  :  the  nerve-cells, 
unlike  the  nerve-fibres,  refuse  to  keep  time  with 
the  electric  shocks,  and  will  only  respond  to  them 
by  vibrating  at  their  own  intrinsic  rate  of  nine 
beats  per  second. 

Thus  much,  then,  for  the  rate  of  molecular 
vibration  which  goes  on  in  nerve-centres.  But  the 
rate  of  such  vibration  which  goes  on  in  sensory  and 
motor  nerves  may  be  very  much  more  rapid.  For 
while  a  nerve-centre  is  only  able  to  originate  a 
vibration  at  the  rate  of  about  nine  beats  per 
second,  a  motor-nerve,  as  we  have  already  seen,  is 
able  to  transmit  a  vibration  of  at  least  1,000  beats 
per  second ;  and  a  sensory  nerve  which  at  the 
surface  of  its  expansion  is  able  to  respond  differently 
to  differences  of  musical  pitch,  of  temperature,  and 
even  of  colour,  is  probably  able  to  vibrate  very 
much  more  rapidly  even  than  this.  We  are  not, 
indeed,  entitled  to  conclude  that  the  nerves  of 
special  sense  vibrate  in  actual  unison,  or  syn- 
chronize, with  these  external  sources  of  stimula- 
tion ;  but  we  are,  I  think,  bound  to  conclude  that 
they  must  vibrate  in  some  numerical  proportion 
to  them  (else  we  should  not  perceive  objective 
differences  in  sound,  temperature,  or  colour) ;  and 
even  this  implies  that  they  are  probably  able  to 
vibrate  at  some  enormous  rate. 

With  further  reference  to  these  molecular  move- 


i4  Mind  and  Motion. 

ments  in  sensory  nerves,  the  following  important 
observation  has  been  made— viz.  that  there  is  a 
constant  ratio  between  the  amount  of  agitation 
produced  in  a  sensory  nerve,  and  the  intensity  of 
the  corresponding  sensation.  This  ratio  is  not 
a  direct  one.  As  Fechner  states  it,  '  Sensation 
varies,  not  as  the  stimulus,  but  as  the  logarithm  of 
the  stimulus.'  Thus,  for  instance,  if  1,000  candles 
are  all  throwing  their  light  upon  the  same  screen, 
we  should  require  ten  more  candles  to  be  added 
before  our  eyes  could  perceive  any  difference  in 
the  amount  of  illumination.  But  if  we  begin  with 
only  100  candles  shining  upon  the  screen,  we 
should  perceive  an  increase  in  the  illumination  by 
adding  a  single  candle.  And  what  is  true  of  sight 
is  equally  true  of  all  the  other  senses :  if  any 
stimulus  is  increased,  the  smallest  increase  of  sensa- 
tion first  occurs  when  the  stimulus  rises  one  per 
cent,  above  its  original  intensity.  Such  being  the 
law  on  the  side  of  sensation,  suppose  that  we  place 
upon  the  optic  nerve  of  an  animal  the  wires  pro- 
ceeding from  a  delicate  galvanometer,  we  find  that 
every  time  we  stimulate  the  eye  with  light,  the 
needle  of  the  galvanometer  moves,  showing  elec- 
trical changes  going  on  in  the  nerve,  caused  by  the 
molecular  agitations.  Now  these  electrical  changes 
are  found  to  vary  in  intensity  with  the  intensity  of 
the  light  used  as  a  stimulus,  and  they  do  so  very 
nearly  in  accordance  with  the  law  of  sensation  just 
mentioned.  So  we  say  that  in  sensation  the 
cerebral  hemispheres  are,  as  it  were,  acting  the 


Mind  and  Motion.  15 

part  of  galvanometers  in  appreciating  the  amount 
of  molecular  change  which  is  going  on  in  sensory 
nerves  ;  and  that  they  record  their  readings  in  the 
mind  as  faithfully  as  a  galvanometer  records  its 
readings  on  the  dial. 

Hitherto  we  have  been  considering  certain  features 
in  the  physiology  of  nervous  action,  so  far  as  this 
can  be  appreciated  by  means  of  physiological 
instruments.  But  we  have  just  seen  that  the 
cerebral  hemispheres  may  themselves  be  regarded 
as  such  instruments,  which  record  in  our  minds 
their  readings  of  changes  going  on  in  our  nerves. 
Hence,  when  other  physiological  instruments  fail 
us,  we  may  gain  much  additional  insight  touching 
the  movements  of  nervous  matter  by  attending  to 
the  thoughts  and  feelings  of  our  own  minds  ;  for 
these  are  so  many  indices  of  what  is  going  on  in  the 
cerebral  hemispheres.  I  therefore  propose  next  to 
contemplate  the  mind,  considered  thus  as  a  physio- 
logical instrument. 

The  same  scientific  instinct  which  led  Hobbes  so 
truly  to  anticipate  the  progress  of  physiology,  led 
him  not  less  truly  to  anticipate  the  progress  of  psy- 
chology. For  just  as  he  was  the  first  to  enunciate 
the  fundamental  principle  of  nerve-action  in  the 
vibration  of  molecules,  so  was  he  likewise  the  first  to 
enunciate  the  fundamental  principle  of  psychology 
in  the  association  of  ideas.  And  the  great  advance 
of  knowledge  which  has  been  made  since  his  day 
with  respect  to  both  these  principles,  entitles  us  to 


16  Mind  and  Motion. 

be  much  more  confident  than  even  he  was  that  they 
are  in  some  way  intimately  united.  Moreover,  the 
manner  in  which  they  are  so  united  we  have  begun 
clearly  to  understand.  For  we  know  from  our 
study  of  nerve-action  in  general,  that  when  once  a 
wave  of  invisible  or  molecular  movement  passes 
through  any  line  of  nerve-structure,  it  leaves  behind 
it  a  change  in  the  structure  such  that  it  is  after- 
wards more  easy  for  a  similar  wave,  when  started 
from  the  same  point,  to  pursue  the  same  course. 
Or,  to  adopt  a  simile  from  Hobbes,  just  as  water 
upon  a  table  flows  most  readily  in  the  lines  which 
have  been  wetted  by  a  previous  flow,  so  the 
invisible  waves  of  nerve-action  pass  most  readily  in 
the  lines  of  a  previous  passage.  This  is  the  reason 
why  in  any  exercise  requiring  muscular  co-ordina- 
tion, or  dexterity,  '  practice  makes  perfect : '  the 
nerve-centres  concerned  learn  to  perform  their 
work  by  frequently  repeating  it,  because  in  this 
way  the  needful  lines  of  wave-movement  in  the 
structure  of  the  nerve-centre  are  rendered  more  and 
more  permeable  by  use.  Now  we  have  seen  that 
in  the  nerve-centres  called  the  cerebral  hemispheres, 
wave-movement  of  this  kind  is  accompanied  with 
feeling.  Changes  of  consciousness  follow  step  by 
step  these  waves  of  movement  in  the  brain,  and 
therefore  when  on  two  successive  occasions  the 
waves  of  movement  pursue  the  same  pathway  in 
the  brain,  they  are  attended  with  a  succession  of 
the  same  ideas  in  the  mind.  Thus  we  see  that  the 
tendency  of  ideas  to  ra:ur  in  the  same  order  as  that 


Mind  and  Motion.  17 

in  which  they  have  previously  ^curred,  is  merely 
an  obverse  expression  of  the  fact  that  lines  of  wave- 
movement  in  the  brain  become  more  and  more 
permeable  by  use.  So  it  comes  that  a  child  can 
learn  its  lessons  by  frequently  repeating  them ;  so 
it  is  that  all  our  knowledge  is  accumulated  ;  and  so 
it  is  that  all  our  thinking  is  conducted. 

A  wholly  new  field  of  inquiry  is  thus  opened  up. 
By  using  our  own  consciousness  as  a  physiological 
instrument  of  the  greatest  delicacy,  we  are  able  to 
learn  a  great  deal  about  the  dynamics  of  brain- 
action  concerning  which  we  should  otherwise 
remain  in  total  ignorance.  But  the  field  of  inquiry 
thus  opened  up  is  too  large  for  me  to  enter  upon 
to-day.  I  will  therefore  merely  observe,  in  general 
terms,  that  although  we  are  still  very  far  from 
understanding  the  operations  of  the  brain  in 
thought,  there  can  be  no  longer  any  question  that 
in  these  operations  of  the  brain  we  have  what 
I  may  term  the  objective  machinery  of  thought. 
'  Not  every  thought  to  every  thought  succeeds  in- 
differently,' said  Hobbes.  Starting  from  this  fact, 
modern  physiology  has  clearly  shown  why  it  is 
a  fact ;  and  looking  to  the  astonishing  rate  at  which 
the  science  of  physiology  is  now  advancing,  I  think 
we  may  fairly  expect  that  within  a  time  less  remote 
than  the  two  centuries  which  now  separate  us  from 
Hobbes,  the  course  of  ideas  in  a  given  train  of 
thought  will  admit  of  having  its  footsteps  tracked 
in  the  corresponding  pathways  of  the  brain.  Be 
this,  however,  as  it  may,  even  now  we  know  enough 

C 


i8  Mind  and  Motion. 

to  say  that,  whether  or  not  these  footsteps  will 
ever  admit  of  being  thus  tracked  in  detail,  they  are 
all  certainly  present  in  the  cerebral  structures  of 
each  one  of  us.  What  we  know  on  the  side  of 
mind  as  logical  sequence,  is  on  the  side  of  the 
nervous  system  nothing  more  than  a  passage  of 
nervous  energy  through  one  series  of  cells  and 
fibres  rather  than  through  another :  what  we 
recognize  as  truth  is  merely  the  fact  of  the  brain 
vibrating  in  tune  with  Nature. 

Such  being  the  intimate  relation  between  nerve- 
action  and  mind-action,  it  has  become  the  scienti- 
fically orthodox  teaching  that  the  two  stand  to  one 
another  in  the  relation  of  cause  to  effect.  One  of 
the  most  distinguished  of  my  predecessors  in  this 
place,  the  President  of  the  Royal  Society,  has  said 
in  one  of  the  most  celebrated  of  his  lectures : — 
'  We  have  as  much  reason  for  regarding  the  mode 
of  motion  of  the  nervous  system  as  the  cause  of  the 
state  of  consciousness,  as  we  have  for  regarding  any 
event  as  the  cause  of  another.'  And,  by  way  of 
perfectly  logical  deduction  from  this  statement, 
Professor  Huxley  argues  that  thought  and  feeling 
have  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  determining 
action  :  they  are  merely  the  bye-products  of  cere- 
bration, or,  as  he  expresses  it,  the  indices  of  changes 
which  are  going  on  in  the  brain.  Under  this  view 
we  are  all  what  he  terms  conscious  automata,  or 
machines  which  happen,  as  it  were  by  chance,  to  be 
conscious  of  some  of  their  own  movements.  But 


Mind  and  Motion.  19 

the  consciousness  is  altogether  adventitious,  and 
bears  the  same  ineffectual  relation  to  the  activity 
of  the  brain  as  a  steam-whistle  bears  to  the  activity 
of  a  locomotive,  or  the  striking  of  a  clock  to  the 
time-keeping  adjustments  of  the  clock-work.  Here, 
again,  we  meet  with  an  echo  of  Hobbes,  who 
opens  his  work  on  the  Commonwealth  with  these 
words : — 

'  Nature,  the  art  whereby  God  hath  made  and  governs  the 
world,  is  by  the  art  of  man,  as  in  many  other  things,  in  this 
also  imitated,  that  it  can  make  an  artificial  animal.  For 
seeing  life  is  but  a  motion  of  limbs,  the  beginning  whereof  is 
in  the  principal  part  within ;  why  may  we  not  say,  that  all 
automata  (engines  that  move  themselves  by  springs  and 
wheels  as  doth  a  watch),  have  an  artificial  life  ?  For  what 
is  the  heart,  but  a  spring •;  and  the  nerves,  but  so  many 
strings ;  and  the  joints,  but  so  many  wheels,  giving  motion 
to  the  whole  body,  such  as  was  intended  by  the  artificer1  ?' 

Now,  this  theory  of  conscious  automatism  is  not 
merely  a  legitimate  outcome  of  the  theory  that 
nervous  changes  are  the  causes  of  mental  changes, 
but  it  is  logically  the  only  possible  outcome.  Nor 
do  I  see  any  way  in  which  this  theory  can  be 
fought  on  grounds  of  physiology.  If  we  persist  in 
regarding  the  association  between  brain  and  thought 
exclusively  from  a  physiological  point  of  view,  we 
must  of  necessity  be  materialists.  Further,  so  far 
as  we  are  physiologists  our  materialism  can  do  us 
no  harm.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  to  us  of  the 
utmost  service,  as  at  once  the  simplest  physiological 

1  Leviathan,  Introduction. 
C  2 


20 


Mind  and  Motion. 


explanation  of  facts  already  known,  and  the  best 
working  hypothesis  to  guide  us  in  our  further 
researches.  But  it  does  not  follow  from  this  that 
the  theory  of  materialism  is  true.  The  bells  of 
St.  Mary's  over  the  way  always  ring  for  a  quarter 
of  an  hour  before  the  University  sermon  ;  yet  the 
ringing  of  the  bells  is  not  the  cause  of  the  sermon, 
although,  as  long  as  the  association  remains  constant, 
there  would  be  no  harm  in  assuming,  for  any 
practical  purposes,  that  it  is  so.  But  just  as  we 
should  be  wrong  in  concluding,  if  we  did  not 
happen  to  know  so  much  about  the  matter  as  we 
do,  that  the  University  sermon  is  produced  by  the 
vibration  of  bells  in  the  tower  of  St.  Mary's  Church, 
so  we  may  be  similarly  wrong  if  we  were  definitely 
to  conclude  that  the  sermon  is  produced  by  the 
vibration  of  a  number  of  little  nerve-cells  in  the 
brain  of  the  preacher. 

Now,  if  time  permitted,  and  if  I  supposed  that 
you  would  all  care  to  go  with  me  into  matters  of 
some  abstruseness,  I  could  certainly  prove  that 
whatever  the  connexion  between  body  and  mind 
may  be,  we  have  the  best  possible  reasons  for  con- 
cluding that  it  is  not  a  causal  connexion.  These 
reasons  are,  of  course,  extra-physiological ;  but 
they  are  not  on  this  account  less  conclusive. 
Within  the  limits  of  a  lecture,  however,  I  can 
only  undertake  to  give  an  outline  sketch  of  what 
I  take  to  be  the  overwhelming  argument  against 
materialism. 

We  have  first  the  general  fact  that  all  our  know- 


Mind  and  Motion.  2i 

ledge  of  motion,  and  so  of  matter,  is  merely  a 
knowledge  of  the  modifications  of  mind.  That  is 
to  say,  all  our  knowledge  of  the  external  world- 
including  the  knowledge  of  our  own  brains — is 
merely  a  knowledge  of  our  own  mental  states. 
Let  it  be  observed  that  we  do  not  even  require  to 
go  so  far  as  the  irrefutable  position  of  Berkeley, 
that  the  existence  of  an  external  world  without  the 
medium  of  mind,  or  of  being  without  knowing,  is 
inconceivable.  It  is  enough  to  take  our  stand  on  a 
lower  level  of  abstraction,  and  to  say  that  whether 
or  not  an  external  world  can  exist  apart  from  mind 
in  any  absolute  or  inconceivable  sense,  at  any  rate 
it  cannot  do  so  for  us.  We  cannot  think  any  of 
the  facts  of  external  nature  without  presupposing 
the  existence  of  a  mind  which  thinks  them  ;  and 
therefore,  so  far  at  least  as  we  are  concerned,  mind 
is  necessarily  prior  to  everything  else.  It  is  for  us 
the  only  mode  of  existence  which  is  real  in  its  own 
right ;  and  to  it,  as  to  a  standard,  all  other  modes 
of  existence  which  may  be  zwferred  must  be  referred. 
Therefore,  if  we  say  that  mind  is  a  function  of 
motion,  we  are  only  saying,  in  somewhat  confused 
terminology,  that  mind  is  a  function  of  itself. 

Such,  then,  I  take  to  be  a  general  refutation  of 
materialism.  To  use  but  a  mild  epithet,  we  must 
conclude  that  the  theory  is  unphilosophical,  seeing 
that  it  assumes  one  thing  to  be  produced  by  another 
thing,  in  spite  of  an  obvious  demonstration  that 
the  alleged  effect  is  necessarily  prior  to  its  cause. 
Such,  I  say,  is  a  general  refutation  of  materialism. 


22 


Mind  and  Motion. 


But  this  is  far  from  being  all.  'Motion,'  says 
Hobbes,  '  produceth  nothing  but  motion  ; '  and 
yet  he  immediately  proceeds  to  assume  that  in 
the  case  of  the  brain  it  produces,  not  only  motion, 
but  mind.  He  was  perfectly  right  in  saying  that 
with  respect  to  its  movements  the  animal  body 
resembles  an  engine  or  a  watch ;  and  if  he  had 
been  acquainted  with  the  products  of  higher 
evolution  in  watch-making,  he  might  with  full 
propriety  have  argued,  for  instance,  that  in  the 
compensating  balance,  whereby  a  watch  adjusts 
its  own  movements  in  adaptation  to  external 
changes  of  temperature,  a  watch  is  exhibiting 
the  mechanical  aspect  of  volition.  And,  similarly, 
it  is  perhaps  possible  to  conceive  that  the  principles 
of  mechanism  might  be  more  and  more  extended 
in  their  effects,  until,  in  so  marvellously  perfected 
a  structure  as  the  human  brain,  all  the  voluntary 
movements  of  the  body  might  be  originated  in  the 
same  mechanical  manner  as  are  the  compensating 
movements  of  a  watch ;  for  this,  indeed,  as  we 
have  seen,  is  no  more  than  happens  in  the  case 
of  all  the  nerve-centres  other  than  the  cerebral 
hemispheres.  If  this  were  so,  motion  would  be 
producing  nothing  but  motion,  and  upon  the 
subject  of  brain-action  there  would  be  nothing 
further  to  say.  Without  consciousness  I  should 
be  delivering  this  lecture ;  without  consciousness 
you  would  be  hearing  it ;  and  all  the  busy  brains 
in  this  University  would  be  conducting  their 
researches,  or  preparing  for  their  examinations, 


Mind  and  Motion.  23 

mindlessly.  Strange  as  such  a  state  of  things 
might  be,  still  motion  would  be  producing  nothing 
but  motion  ;  and,  therefore,  if  there  were  any  mind 
to  contemplate  the  facts,  it  would  encounter  no 
philosophical  paradox :  it  would  merely  have  to 
conclude  that  such  were  the  astonishing  possibilities 
of  mechanism.  But,  as  the  facts  actually  stand,  we 
find  that  this  is  not  the  case.  We  find,  indeed, 
that  up  to  a  certain  level  of  complexity  mechanism 
alone  is  able  to  perform  all  the  compensations  or 
adjustments  which  are  performed  by  the  animal 
body ;  but  we  also  find  that  beyond  this  level  such 
compensations  or  adjustments  are  never  performed 
without  the  intervention  of  consciousness.  There- 
fore, the  theory  of  automatism  has  to  meet  the 
unanswerable  question — How  is  it  that  in  the 
machinery  of  the  brain  motion  produces  this 
something  which  is  not  motion  ?  Science  has  now 
definitely  proved  the  correlation  of  all  the  forces  ; 
and  this  means  that  if  any  kind  of  motion  could 
produce  anything  else  that  is  not  motion,  it  would 
be  producing  that  which  science  would  be  bound 
to  regard  as  in  the  strictest  sense  of  the  word 
a  miracle.  Therefore,  if  we  are  to  take  our  stand 
upon  science — and  this  is  what  materialism  professes 
to  do — we  are  logically  bound  to  conclude,  not 
merely  that  the  evidence  of  causation  from  body 
to  mind  is  not  so  cogent  as  that  of  causation  in  any 
other  case,  but  that  in  this  particular  case  causation 
may  be  proved,  again  in  the  strictest  sense  of  the 
term,  a  physical  impossibility. 


24  Mind  and  Motion. 

To  adduce  only  one  other  consideration.  Apart 
from  all  that  I  have  said,  is  it  not  in  itself  a 
strikingly  suggestive  fact  that  consciousness  only, 
yet  always,  appears  upon  the  scene  when  the 
adjustive  actions  of  any  animal  body  rise  above 
the  certain  level  of  intricacy  to  which  I  have 
alluded  ?  Surely  this  large  and  general  fact  points 
with  irresistible  force  to  the  conclusion,  that  in  the 
performance  of  these  more  complex  adjustments, 
consciousness — or  the  power  of  feeling  and  the 
power  of  willing — is  of  some  use.  Assuredly  on 
the  principles  of  evolution,  which  materialists  at 
all  events  cannot  afford  to  disregard,  it  would  be  a 
wholly  anomalous  fact  that  so  wide  and  important 
a  class  of  faculties  as  those  of  mind  should  have 
become  developed  in  constantly  ascending  degrees 
throughout  the  animal  kingdom,  if  they  were  entirely 
without  use  to  animals.  And,  be  it  observed,  this 
consideration  holds  good  whatever  views  we  may 
happen  to  entertain  upon  the  special  theory  of 
natural  selection.  For  the  consideration  stands 
upon  the  general  fact  that  all  the  organs  and 
functions  of  animals  are  of  use  to  animals  :  we 
never  meet,  on  any  large  or  general  scale,  with 
organs  and  functions  which  are  wholly  adventitious. 
Is  it  to  be  supposed  that  this  general  principle  fails 
just  where  its  presence  is  most  required,  and  that 
the  highest  functions  of  the  highest  organs  of  the 
highest  animals  stand  out  of  analogy  with  all  other 
functions  in  being  themselves  functionless  ?  To 
this  question  I,  for  one,  can  only  answer,  and 


Mind  and  Motion.  25 

answer  unequivocally,  No.  As  a  rational  being 
who  waits  to  take  a  wider  view  of  the  facts  than 
that  which  is  open  to  the  one  line  of  research 
pursued  by  the  physiologist,  I  am  forced  to  con- 
clude that  not  without  a  reason  does  mind  exist 
in  the  frame  of  things ;  and  that  apart  from  the 
activity  of  mind,  whereby  motion  is  related  to  that 
which  is  not  motion,  this  planet  could  never  have 
held  the  wonderful  being,  who  in  multiplying  has 
replenished  the  earth  and  subdued  it — holding 
dominion  over  the  fish  of  the  sea,  and  over  the 
fowl  of  the  air,  and  over  every  living  thing  that 
moveth. 

What,  then,  shall  we  say  touching  this  mysterious 
union  of  mind  and  motion?  Having  found  it 
physically  impossible  that  there  should  be  a  causal 
connexion  proceeding  from  motion  to  mind,  shall 
we  try  to  reverse  the  terms,  and  suppose  a  causal 
connexion  proceeding  from  mind  to  motion  ?  This 
is  the  oldest  and  still  the  most  popular  theory — 
the  theory  of  spiritualism.  And,  no  doubt,  in  one 
important  respect  it  is  less  unphilosophical  than 
the  opposite  theory  of  materialism.  For  spiritualism 
supposes  the  causation  to  proceed  from  that  which 
is  the  source  of  our  idea  of  causality — the  mind  : 
not  from  that  into  which  this  idea  has  been  read— 
the  brain.  Therefore,  if  causation  were  to  be 
accepted  as  a  possibility  either  way,  it  would  be 
less  unreasonable  to  suppose  mental  changes  the 
causes  of  material  changes  than  vice  versd  ;  for  we 
should  then  at  least  be  starting  from  the  basis  of 


26  Mind  and  Motion. 

immediate  knowledge,  instead  of  from  the  reflection 
of  that  knowledge  in  what  we  call  the  external 
world.  Seeing  that  the  external  world  is  known 
to  us  only  as  motion,  it  is  logically  impossible  for 
the  mind  to  infer  its  own  causation  from  the 
external  world ;  for  this  would  be  to  infer  that  it 
is  an  effect  of  motion,  which  would  be  the  same 
as  saying  that  it  is  an  effect  of  its  own  knowledge ; 
and  this  would  be  absurd.  But,  on  the  other  hand, 
it  is  not  thus  logically  impossible  for  the  mind  to 
infer  that  it  may  be  the  cause  of  some  of  its  own 
knowledge,  or,  in  other  words,  that  it  may  have  in 
some  measure  the  power  of  producing  what  it 
knows  as  motion.  And  when  the  mind  does  infer 
this,  no  logic  on  earth  is  able  to  touch  the  inference  ; 
the  position  of  pure  idealism  is  beyond  the  reach 
of  argument.  Nevertheless,  it  is  opposed  to  the 
whole  momentum  of  science.  For  if  mind  is 
supposed,  on  no  matter  how  small  a  scale,  to  be 
a  cause  of  motion,  the  fundamental  axiom  of  science 
is  impugned.  This  fundamental  axiom  is  that 
energy  can  neither  be  created  nor  destroyed — 
that  just  as  motion  can  produce  nothing  but  motion, 
so,  conversely,  motion  can  be  produced  by  nothing 
but  motion.  Regarded,  therefore,  from  the  stand- 
point of  physical  science,  the  theory  of  spiritualism 
is  in  precisely  the  same  case  as  the  theory  of 
materialism :  that  is  to  say,  if  the  supposed  causa- 
tion takes  place,  it  can  only  be  supposed  to  do  so 
by  way  of  miracle. 

And  this  is  a  conclusion  which  the  more  clear- 


Mind  and  Motion.  27 

sighted  of  the  idealists  have  expressly  recognized. 
That  subtle  and  most  entertaining  thinker,  for 
example,  the  late  Professor  Green  of  Oxford,  has 
said  that  the  self-conscious  volition  of  man  '  does 
not  consist  in  a  series  of  natural  events,  ...  is  not 
natural  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  that  term ;  not 
natural  at  any  rate  in  any  sense  in  which  natural- 
ness would  imply  its  determination  by  antecedent 
events,  or  by  conditions  of  which  it  is  not  itself  the 
source.' 

Thus  the  theory  of  spiritualism,  although  not 
directly  refutable  by  any  process  of  logic,  is 
certainly  enfeebled  by  its  collision  with  the  instincts 
of  physical  science.  In  necessarily  holding  the  facts 
of  consciousness  and  volition  super-natural,  extra- 
natural,  or  non-natural,  the  theory  is  opposed  to 
the  principle  of  continuity. 

Spiritualism  being  thus  unsatisfactory,  and  mate- 
rialism impossible,  is  there  yet  any  third  hypothesis 
in  which  we  may  hope  to  find  intellectual  rest? 
In  my  opinion  there  is.  If  we  unite  in  a  higher 
synthesis  the  elements  both  of  spiritualism  and  of 
materialism,  we  obtain  a  product  which  satisfies 
every  fact  of  feeling  on  the  one  hand,  and  of 
observation  on  the  other.  The  manner  in  which 
this  synthesis  may  be  effected  is  perfectly  simple. 
We  have  only  to  suppose  that  the  antithesis  between 
mind  and  motion — subject  and  object — is  itself 
phenomenal  or  apparent :  not  absolute  or  real. 
We  have  only  to  suppose  that  the  seeming  duality 
is  relative  to  our  modes  of  apprehension ;  and, 


28  Mind  and  Motion. 

therefore,  that  any  change  taking  place  in  the 
mind,  and  any  corresponding  change  taking  place 
in  the  brain,  are  really  not  two  changes,  but  one 
change.  When  a  violin  is  played  upon  we  hear 
a  musical  sound,  and  at  the  same  time  we  see 
a  vibration  of  the  strings.  Relatively  to  our 
consciousness,  therefore,  we  have  here  two  sets  of 
changes,  which  appear  to  be  very  different  in  kind  ; 
yet  we  know  that  in  an  absolute  sense  they  are  one 
and  the  same :  we  know  that  the  diversity  in 
consciousness  is  created  only  by  the  difference  in 
our  modes  of  perceiving  the  same  event — whether 
we  see  or  whether  we  hear  the  vibration  of  the 
strings.  Similarly,  we  may  suppose  that  a  vibra- 
tion of  nerve-strings  and  a  process  of  thought 
are  really  one  and  the  same  event,  which  is  dual 
or  diverse  only  in  relation  to  our  modes  of  per- 
ceiving it. 

The  great  advantage  of  this  theory  is  that  it 
supposes  only  one  stream  of  causation,  in  which 
both  mind  and  motion  are  simultaneously  concerned. 
The  theory,  therefore,  escapes  all  the  difficulties 
and  contradictions  with  which  both  spiritualism 
and  materialism  are  beset.  Thus,  motion  is  sup- 
posed to  be  producing  nothing  but  motion  ;  mind- 
changes  nothing  but  mind-changes  :  both  producing 
both  simultaneously,  neither  could  be  what  it  is 
without  the  other,  because  without  the  other  neither 
could  be  the  cause  which  in  fact  it  is.  Impossible, 
therefore,  is  the  supposition  of  the  materialist  that 
consciousness  is  adventitious,  or  that  in  the  absence 


Mind  and  Motion.  29 

of  mind  changes  of  brain  could  be  what  they  are ;  for 
it  belongs  to  the  very  causation  of  these  changes  that 
they  should  have  a  mental  side.  The  use  of  mind 
to  animals  is  thus  rendered  apparent ;  for  intelligent 
volition  is  thus  shown  to  be  a  true  cause  of  adjustive 
movement,  in  that  the  cerebration  which  it  involves 
could  not  otherwise  be  possible :  the  causation 
would  not  otherwise  be  complete. 

A  simple  illustration  may  serve  at  once  to  render 
this  doctrine  more  easily  intelligible,  and  to  show 
that,  if  accepted,  the  doctrine,  as  it  appears  to  me, 
terminates  the  otherwise  interminable  controversy 
on  the  freedom  of  the  will. 

In  an  Edison  lamp  the  light  which  is  emitted 
from  the  burner  may  be  said  indifferently  to  be 
caused  by  the  number  of  vibrations  per  second 
going  on  in  the  carbon,  or  by  the  temperature  of 
the  carbon  ;  for  this  rate  of  vibration  could  not  take 
place  in  the  carbon  without  constituting  that  degree 
of  temperature  which  affects  our  eyes  as  luminous. 
Similarly,  a  train  of  thought  may  be  said  indif- 
ferently to  be  caused  by  brain-action  or  by  mind- 
action  ;  for,  ex  hypothesi^  the  one  could  not  take 
place  without  the  other.  Now,  when  we  contem- 
plate the  phenomena  of  volition  by  themselves, 
it  is  as  though  we  were  contemplating  the  pheno- 
mena of  light  by  themselves  :  volition  is  produced 
by  mind  in  brain,  just  as  light  is  produced  by 
temperature  in  carbon.  And  just  as  we  may 
correctly  speak  of  light  as  the  cause,  say,  of  a 
photograph,  so  we  may  correctly  speak  of  volition 


30  Mind  and  Motion. 

as  the  cause  of  bodily  movement.      That   parti- 
cular kind  of  physical  activity  which  takes  place 
in    the   carbon  could   not  take  place  without  the 
light  which  causes  a  photograph  ;  and,  similarly, 
that  particular  kind  of  physical  activity  which  takes 
place  in  the  brain  could  not  take  place  without  the 
volition  which  causes  a  bodily  movement.     So  that 
volition  is  as  truly  a  cause  of  bodily  movement  as 
is  the  physical  activity  of  the  brain ;  seeing  that, 
in  an  absolute  sense,  the  cause  is  one  and  the  same. 
But  if  we  once  clearly  perceive  that  what  in  a  relative 
sense  we  know  as  volition  is,  in  a  similar  sense,  the 
cause  of  bodily  movement,  we  terminate  the  question 
touching  the  freedom  of  the  will.    For  this  question 
in  its  last  resort — and  apart  from  the  ambiguity 
which  has  been  thrown  around  it  by  some  of  our 
metaphysicians — is    merely   the   question   whether 
the  will  is  to  be  regarded  as  a  cause  of  Nature. 
And  the  theory  which  we  have  now  before  us  sanc- 
tions the  doctrine  that  it  may  be  so  regarded,  if  only 
we  remember  that  its  causal  activity  depends  upon 
its  identity  with  the  obverse  aspect  known  as  cere- 
bration, without  which  identity  in  apparent  duality 
neither  volition  nor  cerebration  could  be  the  cause 
which  in  fact  they  are.     It  thus  becomes  a  mere 
matter  of  phraseology  whether  we  speak  of  the  will 
determining,  or  being  determined  by,  changes  going 
on  in  the  external  world  ;  just  as  it  is  but  a  matter 
of  phraseology  whether  we  speak  of  temperature 
determining,   or   being   determined    by,   molecular 
vibration.     All  the  requirements  alike  of  the  free- 


Mind  and  Motion.  31 

will  and  of  the  bond-will  hypotheses  are  thus  satisfied 
by  a  synthesis  which  comprises  them  both.  On  the 
one  hand,  it  would  be  as  impossible  for  an  uncon- 
scious automaton  to  do  the  work  or  to  perform  the 
adjustments  of  a  conscious  agent,  as  it  would  be 
for  an  Edison  lamp  to  give  out  light  and  cause  a 
photograph  when  not  heated  by  an  electric  current. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  would  be  as  impossible  for 
the  will  to  originate  bodily  movement  without  the 
occurrence  of  a  strictly  physical  process  of  cerebra- 
tion, as  it  would  be  for  light  to  shine  in  an  Edison 
lamp  which  had  been  deprived  of  its  carbon-burner. 
It  may  be  said  of  this  theory  that  it  is  highly 
speculative,  not  verifiable  by  any  possible  experi- 
ment, and  therefore  at  best  is  but  a  mere  guess. 
All  which  is,  no  doubt,  perfectly  true  ;  but,  on  the 
other  hand,  we  must  remember  that  this  theory 
comes  to  us  as  the  only  one  which  is  logically 
possible,  and  at  the  same  time  competent  to  satisfy 
the  facts  alike  of  the  outer  and  of  the  inner  world. 
It  is  a  speculation  in  the  sense  of  not  being  verifiable 
by  experiment  ;  but  it  has  much  more  value  than 
ordinarily  attaches  to  an  unverifiable  speculation, 
in  that  there  is  really  no  alternative  hypothesis  to 
be  considered :  if  we  choose  to  call  it  a  guess,  we 
must  at  the  same  time  remember  it  is  a  guess  where 
it  does  not  appear  that  any  other  is  open.  Once 
more  to  quote  Hobbes,  who,  as  we  have  seen, 
was  himself  a  remarkable  instance  of  what  he  here 
says :  '  The  best  prophet  naturally  is  the  best 
guesser ;  and  the  best  guesser,  he  that  is  most 


32 


Mind  and  Motion. 


versed  and  studied  in  the  matters  he  guesses  at.' 
In  this  case,  therefore,  the  best  prophet  is  not  the 
physiologist,  whose  guess  ends  in  materialism  ;  nor 
the  purely  mental  philosopher,  whose  guess  ends  in 
spiritualism  ;  but  rather  the  man  who,  being  '  versed 
and  studied '  in  all  the  facts  appertaining  to  both 
sides  of  the  matter,  ends  in  the  only  alternative 
guess  which  remains  open.  And  if  that  most 
troublesome  individual,  the  ' plain  man'  of  Locke, 
should  say  it  seems  at  least  opposed  to  common 
sense  to  suppose  that  there  is  anything  in  a  burning 
candle  or  a  rolling  billiard-ball  substantially  the 
same  as  mind,  the  answer  is  that  if  he  could 
look  into  my  brain  at  this  moment  he  would  see 
nothing  there  but  motion  of  molecules,  or  motion 
of  masses ;  and  apart  from  the  accident  of  my 
being  able  to  tell  him  so,  his  '  common  sense  * 
could  never  have  divined  that  these  motions  in  my 
brain  are  concerned  in  the  genesis  of  my  spoken 
thoughts. 

It  is  obvious  that  from  this  hypothesis  as  to  the 
substantial  identity  of  mind  and  motion,  two  impor- 
tant questions  arise ;  and  I  feel  that  some  reference 
to  these  questions  is  in  present  circumstances  forced 
upon  me,  because  they  have  both  been  considered 
in  precisely  the  same  connexion  by  one  of  the  most 
powerful  intellects  that  was  ever  sent  out  into  the 
world  by  this  University.  I  mean  the  late  Professor 
Clifford.  As  my  intimate  and  valued  friend,  I  desire 
to  mention  his  name  in  this  place  with  all  the  afifec- 


Mind  and  Motion.  33 

tion,  as  well  as  with  all  the  admiration,  to  which 
I  well  know  it  is  so  fully  entitled  ;  and  if  I  appear 
to  mention  him  only  in  order  to  disagree  with  him, 
this  is  only  because  I  know  equally  well  that  in  his 
large  and  magnanimous  thought  differences  of 
philosophical  opinion  were  never  felt  to  weaken  the 
bonds  of  friendship. 

In  his  well-known  lecture  on  Body  and  Mind, 
Professor  Clifford  adopted  the  hypothesis  of  identity 
which  we  are  now  considering,  and  from  it  was  led 
to  the  conclusion  that  if  in  the  case  of  cerebral 
processes  motion  is  one  with  mind,  the  same  must 
be  true  of  motion  wherever  it  occurs ;  or,  as  he 
expressed  it  subsequently,  the  whole  universe  must 
be  made  of  mind-stuff.  But  in  his  view,  although 
matter  in  motion  presents  what  may  be  termed  the 
raw  material  of  mind,  it  is  only  in  the  highly  elabo- 
rated constitution  of  the  human  brain  that  this  raw 
material  is  sufficiently  wrought  up  to  yield  a  self- 
conscious  personality.  Hence  the  dissolution  of 
a  human  brain  implies  the  dissolution  of  a  human 
mind  ;  and  hence  also  the  universe,  although  entirely 
composed  of  mind-stuff,  is  itself  mindless.  Now, 
all  I  have  to  say  about  these  two  deductions  is 
this — they  do  not  necessarily  follow  from  the  theory 
which  is  before  us.  In  holding  that  the  mind  of 
man  perishes  with  his  body,  and  that  above  the 
mind  of  man  there  is  no  other,  Clifford  may  have 
been  right,  or  may  have  been  wrong.  I  am  not 
here  to  discuss  at  length  any  questions  of  such 
supreme  importance.  But  I  feel  that  I  am  here  to 

D 


34  Mind  and  Motion. 

insist  upon  the  one  point  which  is  immediately  con- 
nected with  my  subject ;  and  this  is,  that  whether 
or  not  Clifford  was  right  in  his  conclusions,  these 
conclusions  certainly  did  not  follow  by  way  of 
any  logical  sequence  from  his  premises.  Because 
within  the  limits  of  human  experience  mind  is 
only  known  as  associated  with  brain,  it  clearly  does 
not  follow  that  mind  cannot  exist  in  any  other 
mode.  It  does  not  even  follow  that  any  probability 
upon  this  matter  can  be  thus  established.  The  basis 
of  analogy  on  which  Clifford  sought  to  rear  an 
inference  of  cosmical  extent,  was  restricted  to  the 
one  instance  of  mind  as  known  upon  one  planet ; 
and,  therefore,  it  is  hard  to  imagine  a  more  pre- 
carious use  of  that  precarious  method  which  is 
called  by  logicians  simple  enumeration.  Indeed, 
oven  for  what  it  is  worth,  the  inference  may  be 
pointed  with  quite  as  much  effect  in  precisely 
the  opposite  direction.  For  we  have  seen  how 
little  it  is  that  we  understand  of  the  one  mode  in 
which  we  certainly  know  that  mind  does  exist ;  and 
if  from  this  little  we  feel  impelled  to  conclude  that 
there  is  a  mode  of  mind  which  is  not  restricted  to 
brain,  but  co-extensive  with  motion,  is  con- sub- 
stantial and  co-eternal  with  all  that  was,  and  is, 
and  is  to  come ;  have  we  not  at  least  a  suggestion, 
that  high  as  the  heavens  are  above  the  earth,  so 
high  above  our  thoughts  may  be  the  thoughts  of 
such  a  mind  as  this  ?  I  offer  no  opinion  upon  the 
question  whether  the  general  order  of  Nature  does 
not  require  some  one  explanatory  cause  ;  nor  upon 


Mind  and  Motion.  35 

the  question  whether  the  mind  of  man  itself  does 
not  point  to  something  kindred  in  the  self-existing 
origin  of  things.  I  am  not  concerned  to  argue  any 
point  upon  which  I  feel  that  opinions  may  legiti- 
mately differ.  I  am  only  concerned  to  show  that, 
in  so  far  as  any  deductions  can  be  drawn  from  the 
theory  which  is  before  us,  they  make  at  least  as 
much  against  as  in  favour  of  the  cosmical  conclu- 
sions arrived  at  by  Clifford. 

On  February  17,  in  the  year  1600,  when  the 
streets  of  Rome  were  thronged  with  pilgrims  from 
all  the  quarters  of  Christendom,  while  no  less  than 
fifty  cardinals  were  congregated  for  the  Jubilee  ; 
into  the  densely  crowded  Campo  di  Fiori  a  man 
was  led  to  the  stake,  where,  '  silent  and  self- 
sustained,'  before  the  eyes  of  all  nations,  he 
perished  in  the  flames.  That  death  was  the  death 
of  a  martyr :  it  was  met  voluntarily  in  attestation 
of  truth.  But  most  noble  of  all  the  noble  army 
to  which  he  belonged,  the  name  of  that  man  is 
written  large  in  history,  as  the  name  of  one  who 
had  fortitude  to  die,  not  in  the  cause  of  religious 
belief,  but  in  that  of  scientific  conviction.  For  why 
did  Bruno  suffer?  He  suffered,  as  we  all  know, 
because  he  refused  to  recant  his  persuasion  of  the 
truth  of  the  Copernican  theory.  Why,  then,  do  I 
adduce  the  name  of  Bruno  at  the  close  of  this 
lecture?  I  do  so  because,  as  far  as  I  have  been 
able  to  ascertain,  he  was  the  first  clearly  to  enun- 
ciate the  monistic  theory  of  things  to  which  the 
consideration  of  my  subject  has  conducted  us. 
D  2 


36  Mind  and  Motion, 

This  theory — or  that  as  to  the  substantial  identity 
of  mind  and  motion — was  afterwards  espoused,  in 
different  guises,  by  sundry  other  writers ;  but  to 
Bruno  belongs  the  merit  of  its  original  publication, 
and  it  was  partly  for  his  adherence  to  this  publica- 
tion that  he  died.  To  this  day  Bruno  is  ordinarily 
termed  a  pantheist,  and  his  theory,  which  in  the 
light  of  much  fuller  knowledge  I  am  advocating, 
Pantheism.  I  do  not  care  to  consider  a  difference 
of  terms,  where  the  only  distinction  resides  in  so 
unintelligible  an  idea  as  that  of  the  creation  of 
substance.  It  is  more  to  the  purpose  to  observe 
that  in  the  mind  of  its  first  originator— and  this 
a  mind  which  was  sufficiently  clear  in  its  thought 
to  die  for  its  perception  of  astronomical  truth — the 
theory  of  Pantheism  was  but  a  sublime  extension  of 
the  then  contracted  views  of  Theism.  And  I  think 
that  we  of  to-day,  when  we  look  to  the  teaching  of 
this  martyr  of  science,  will  find  that  in  his  theory 
alone  do  we  meet  with  what  I  may  term  a  philo- 
sophically adequate  conception  of  Deity.  If  the 
advance  of  natural  science  is  now  steadily  leading 
us  to  the  conclusion  that  there  is  no  motion  without 
mind,  must  we  not  see  how  the  independent  con- 
clusion of  mental  science  is  thus  independently 
confirmed — the  conclusion,  I  mean,  that  there  is  no 
being  without  knowing  ?  To  me,  at  least,  it  does 
appear  that  the  time  has  come  when  we  may  begin, 
as  it  were  in  a  dawning  light,  to  see  that  the  study 
of  Nature  and  the  study  of  Mind  are  meeting  upon 
this  greatest  of  possible  truths.  And  if  this  is  the 


Mind  and  Motion.  37 

case — if  there  is  no  motion  without  mind,  no  being 
without  knowing — shall  we  infer,  with  Clifford,  that 
universal  being  is  mindless,  or  answer  with  a  dog- 
matic negative  that  most  stupendous  of  questions — 
Is  there  knowledge  with  the  Most  High  ?  If  there 
is  no  motion  without  mind,  no  being  without  know- 
ing, may  we  not  rather  infer,  with  Bruno,  that  it  is 
in  the  medium  of  mind,  and  in  the  medium  of 
knowledge,  we  live,  and  move,  and  have  our 
being  ? 

This,  I  think,  is  the  direction  in  which  the  infer- 
ence points,  if  we  are  careful  to  set  the  logical 
conditions  with  complete  impartiality.  But  the 
ulterior  question  remains,  whether,  so  far  as  science 
is  concerned,  it  is  here  possible  to  point  any  inference 
at  all :  the  whole  orbit  of  human  knowledge  may 
be  too  narrow  to  afford  a  parallax  for  measurements 
so  vast.  Yet  even  here,  if  it  be  true  that  the  voice 
of  science  must  thus  of  necessity  speak  the  language 
of  agnosticism,  at  least  let  us  see  to  it  that  the 
language  is  pure  ;  let  us  not  tolerate  any  barbarisms 
introduced  from  the  side  of  aggressive  dogma.  So 
shall  we  find  that  this  new  grammar  of  thought 
does  not  admit  of  any  constructions  radically  op- 
posed to  more  venerable  ways  of  thinking  ;  even  if 
we  do  not  find  that  the  often-quoted  words  of  its 
earliest  formulator  apply  with  special  force  to  its 
latest  dialects — that  if  a  little  knowledge  of  physi- 
ology and  a  little  knowledge  of  psychology  dispose 
men  to  atheism,  a  deeper  knowledge  of  both,  and, 
still  more,  a  deeper  thought  upon  their  relations  to 


38  Mind  and  Motion. 

one  another,  will  lead  men  back  to  some  form  of 
religion,  which,  if  it  be  more  vague,  may  also  be 
more  worthy  than  that  of  earlier  days. 

'  It  is  a  beauteous  evening,  calm  and  free ; 
The  holy  time  is  quiet  as  a  nun, 
Breathless  with  adoration  ;   the  broad  sun 
Is  sinking  down  in  its  tranquillity ; 
The  gentleness  of  heaven  is  on  the  sea : 
Listen !   the  mighty  being  is  awake, 
And  doth  with  his  eternal  motion  make 
A  sound  like  thunder,  everlastingly.' 


MONISM 


'  Das  Ich  ist  nicht  aus  Leib  und  Seek  zusammengesetzt, 
sondern  es  ist  eine  bestimmte  Entwicklungsstufe  des  Wesens, 
das  von  verschiedenem  Standpunkt  betrachtet  in  korperliches 
und  geistiges  Dasein  auseinanderfallt.' — Wundt,  Vorlesungen 
iiber  die  Menschen-  und  Thierseele,  i.  293. 


INTRODUCTION. 


IN  no  respect  has  the  progress  of  physical 
science  exercised  a  more  profound  influence  upon 
philosophical  thought  than  it  has  by  proving  an 
apparently  quantitative  relation  between  material 
changes  and  mental  changes.  It  has  always  been 
known  that  there  is  qualitative  relation.  Even 
long  before  mankind  suspected  that  the  brain  was 
in  any  way  connected  with  thought,  it  was  well 
understood  that  alcohol  and  other  poisons  exercised 
their  sundry  influences  on  the  mind  in  virtue  of 
influences  which  they  exercised  upon  the  body  ; 
and  even  the  lowest  savages  must  always  have 
been  aware  that  a  blow  on  the  head  is  followed 
by  insensibility.  But  it  was  not  until  the  rise  of 
Physiology  that  this  qualitative  relation  between 
corporeal  changes  and  mental  changes  was  gra- 
dually found  to  be  a  quantitative  one — or  that 
every  particular  change  of  mind  had  an  exact  and 
invariable  counterpart  in  some  particular  change  of 
body.  It  is  needless  for  me  to  detail  the  successive 
steps  in  the  long  course  of  physiological  discovery 
whereby  this  great  fact  has  been  established ; 


42  Monism. 

it  is  enough  to  say  that  the  fact  is  established  to 
the  satisfaction  of  every  physiologist. 

Now,  when  once  the  relation  between  material 
changes  and  mental  changes  has  been  thus  recog- 
nized as  quantitative — or,  which  is  the  same  thing, 
when  once  the  association  has  been  recognized  as 
both  invariable  and  exact — there  arises  the  question 
as  to  how  this  relation  is  to  be  explained.  Formally 
considered — or  considered  as  a  matter  of  logical 
statement  irrespective  of  e  relative  probabilities 
which  they  may  present,  either  to  the  minds  of 
different  individuals  or  to  the  general  intelligence 
of  the  race — it  appears  to  me  that  the  possible 
hypotheses  are  here  seven  in  number. 

I.  The  mental  changes  may  cause  the  material 

changes. 

II.  The  material  changes  may  cause  the  mental 
changes. 

III.  There  may  be  no  causation  either  way,  be- 

cause the  association  may  be  only  a 
phenomenal  association — the  two  apparently 
diverse  classes  of  phenomena  being  really 
one  and  the  same. 

IV.  There   may    be    no    causation    either    way, 

because  the  association  may  be  due  to 
a  harmony  pre-established  by  a  superior 
mind. 

V.  There  may  be  no  causation  either  way,  be- 
cause the  association  may  always  be  due 
to  chance. 


Introduction.  43 

VI.  There  may  be  no  causation  either  way,  be- 
cause the  material  order  may  not  have  any 
real  existence  at  all,  being  merely  an  ideal 
creation  of  the  mental  order. 

VII.  Whether  or  not  there  be  any  causation  either 
way,  the  association  may  be  one  which 
it  is  necessarily  beyond  the  power  of  the 
human  mind  to  explain. 

So  far  as  I  can  see,  this  list  of  possible  answers 
to  the  question  before  us  is  exhaustive.  I  will 
next  show  why,  in  my  opinion,  the  last  four  of 
them  may  be  excluded  in  limine. 

The  suggestion  of  pre-established  harmony  (IV) 
merely  postpones  the  question  :  it  assumes  a  higher 
mind  as  adjusting  correspondencies  between  known 
minds  and  animal  bodies  with  respect  to  the 
activities  of  each ;  and,  therefore,  it  either  leaves 
untouched  the  ultimate  question  concerning  the 
relation  of  mind  (as  such)  to  matter,  or  else  it 
answers  this  question  in  terms  of  spiritualism  (I). 

The  suggestion  of  chance  (V)  is  effectually 
excluded  by  the  doctrine  of  chances :  even  in  any 
one  individual  mind,  the  association  between 
mental  changes  and  material  changes  is  much  too 
intimate,  constant,  and  detailed  to  admit  of  any 
one  reasonably  supposing  that  it  can  be  due  only 
to  chance. 

The  suggestion  of  pure  idealism  (VI)  ultimately 
implies  that  the  thinking  Ego  is  itself  the  sole 
existence — a  position  which  cannot,  indeed,  be 


44  Monism. 

turned  by  any  assault  of  logic ;  but  one  which  is 
nevertheless  too  obviously  opposed  to  common 
sense  to  admit  of  any  serious  defence  ;  its  immunity 
from  direct  attack  arises  only  from  the  gratuitous 
nature  of  its  challenge  to  prove  a  negative  (namely, 
that  the  thinking  Ego  is  not  the  sole  existence), 
and  this  a  negative  which  is  necessarily  beyond 
the  region  of  proof. 

Lastly,  the  suggestion  that  the  problem  is 
necessarily  insoluble  (VII)  does  not  deserve  to  be 
regarded  as  an  hypothesis  at  all ;  for  to  suppose 
that  the  problem  is  necessarily  insoluble  is  merely 
to  exclude  the  supposition  of  there  being  any 
hypothesis  available. 

In  view  of  these  several  considerations,  it  appears 
to  me  that,  although  in  a  formal  sense  we  may  say 
there  are  altogether  seven  possible  answers  to  the 
question  before  us,  in  reality,  or  for  the  purposes  of 
practical  discussion,  there  are  now-a-days  but  three 
— namely  those  which  head  the  above  list,  and 
which  I  will  now  proceed  to  consider. 

I  have  named  these  three  hypotheses  in  the 
order  of  their  appearance  during  the  history  of 
philosophical  thought.  The  earliest  is  the  spirit- 
ualistic. As  far  back  as  we  can  trace  the  con- 
ceptions of  primitive  man,  we  meet  with  an 
unquestioning  belief  that  it  is  his  spirit  which 
animates  his  body ;  and,  starting  from  this  belief 
as  explanatory  of  the  movements  of  his  own  body, 
he  readily  attributes  movements  elsewhere  to 
analogous  agencies— the  theory  of  animism  in 


Introduction.  45 

Nature  thus  becoming  the  universal  theory  in  all 
early  stages  of  culture.  It  also  appears  to  be  the 
theory  most  natural  to  our  own  children  during  the 
early  years  of  their  dawning  intelligence,  and 
would  doubtless  continue  through  life  in  the  case  of 
every  individual  human  being,  were  he  not  sub- 
sequently instructed  in  the  reasons  which  have  led 
to  its  rejection  by  many  other  members  of  his 
race.  These  reasons,  as  already  observed,  have 
been  furnished  in  their  entirety  only  within  com- 
paratively recent  times ;  not  until  Physiology  was 
able  to  prove  how  intimate  is  the  association 
between  cerebral  processes  and  mental  processes 
did  it  become  possible  for  materialism  to  turn  the 
tables  upon  spiritualism,  by  simply  inverting  the 
hypothesis.  Lastly,  although  the  theory  of  Monism 
(III)  may  be  traced  back  at  least  as  far  as  the 
pantheistic  thought  of  Buddhism,  it  there  had 
reference  to  theology  as  distinguished  from 
psychology.  And  even  as  presented  in  the  writings 
of  Bruno,  Spinoza,  and  other  so-called  monists 
prior  to  the  present  century,  the  hypothesis 
necessarily  lacked  completeness  on  account  of  the 
absence  of  knowledge  afterwards  supplied  by 
physiology.  For  Monism,  in  the  sense  of  this 
term  as  I  shall  use  it,  may  be  metaphorically 
regarded  as  the  child  of  the  two  pre-existing 
theories,  Spiritualism  and  Materialism.  The  birth 
of  this  child  was  necessarily  impossible  before 
both  its  parents  had  reached  mature  age.  On 
the  one  hand  it  was  necessary  that  the  theory  of 


46  Monism. 

Spiritualism  should  have  outgrown  its  infancy  as 
Animism,  its  childhood  as  Polytheism,  before  it 
entered  upon  its  youth  as  Monotheism — or  before 
it  was  able  to  supply  material  for  the  conception 
of  Monism  as  a  theory  of  cosmical  extent.  On  the 
other  hand,  Materialism  required  to  grow  into  the 
fullness  of  manhood,  under  the  nursing  influence  of 
Science,  before  it  was  possible  to  engender  this 
new-born  offspring ;  for  this  offspring  is  new- 
born. The  theory  of  Monism,  as  we  are  about  to 
consider  it,  is  a  creature  of  our  own  generation  ; 
and  it  is  only  as  such  that  I  desire  to  call  attention 
to  the  child.  In  order,  however,  to  do  this,  I  must 
follow  the  example  of  biographers  in  general,  and 
begin  by  giving  a  brief  sketch  of  both  the  parents. 


CHAPTER   I. 

SPIRITUALISM. 

IN  proceeding  to  consider  the  opposite  theories  of 
Spiritualism  and  Materialism,  it  is  before  all  else 
desirable  to  be  perfectly  clear  upon  the  point  of 
theory  whereby  they  are  essentially  distinguished. 
This  point  is  that  which  is  raised  by  the  question 
whether  mind  is  the  cause  or  the  effect  of  motion. 
Both  theories  are  dualistic,  and  therefore  agree 
in  holding  that  there  is  causation  as  between  mind 
and  motion  :  they  differ  only  in  their  teaching  as 
to  the  direction  in  which  the  causation  proceeds. 
Of  course,  out  of  this  fundamental  difference  there 
arise  many  secondary  differences.  The  most  im- 
portant of  these  secondary  differences  has  reference 
to  the  nature  of  the  eternal  or  self-existing  substance. 
Both  theories  agree  that  there  is  such  a  substance  ; 
but  on  the  question  whether  this  substance  be  mental 
or  material,  the  two  theories  give  contradictory 
answers,  and  logically  so.  For,  if  mind  as  we  directly 
know  it  (namely,  in  ourselves)  is  taken  to  be  a  cause 
of  motion,  within  our  experience  mind  is  accredited 
with  priority  ;  and  hence  the  inference  that  else- 


48  Monism. 

where,  or  universally,  mind  is  prior  to  motion. 
Furthermore,  as  motion  cannot  take  place  without 
something  which  moves,  this  something  is  likewise 
supposed  to  have  been  the  result  of  mind  :  hence 
the  doctrine  of  the  creation  by  mind  both  of  matter 
and  of  energy.  On  the  other  hand,  the  theory  of 
materialism,  by  refusing  to  assign  priority  to  mind  as 
known  directly  in  ourselves,  naturally  concludes  that 
mind  is  elsewhere,  or  universally,  the  result  of  matter 
in  motion — in  other  words,  that  matter  in  motion  is 
the  eternal  or  self-existing  substance,  and,  as  such, 
the  cause  of  mind  wherever  mind  occurs. 

I  may  observe,  in  passing,  that  although  this 
cosmical  deduction  from  the  theory  of  materialism  is, 
as  I  have  said,  natural,  it  is  not  (as  is  the  case  with 
the  corresponding  deduction  from  the  theory  of 
spiritualism)  inevitable.  For  it  is  logically  possible 
that  even  though  all  known  minds  be  the  results  of 
matter  in  motion,  matter  in  motion  may  nevertheless 
itself  be  the  result  of  an  unknown  mind.  This, 
indeed,  is  the  position  virtually  adopted  by  Locke 
in  his  celebrated  controversy  with  the  Bishop  of 
Worcester.  Having  been  taken  to  task  by  this 
divine  for  the  materialistic  tendency  of  his  writings, 
Locke  defends  himself  by  denying  the  necessary 
character  of  the  deduction  which  we  are  now  con- 
sidering. For  example,  he  insists,  '  I  see  no  con- 
tradiction in  it  that  the  first  eternal  thinking  being 
should,  if  he  pleased,  give  to  certain  systems  of 
created  senseless  matter,  put  together  as  he  thinks 
fit,  some  degrees  of  sense,  perception,  and  thought : 


Spiritualism.  49 

though,  as  I  think,  I  have  proved  (lib.  IV,  ch.  10  and 
14  &c.),  it  is  no  less  than  a  contradiction  to  suppose 
matter  (which  is  evidently  in  its  own  nature  void 
of  sense  and  thought)  should  be  that  eternal  first 
thinking  being.'  Under  this  view,  it  will  be  observed, 
mind  is  supposed  to  have  the  ultimate  priority,  and 
thus  to  have  been  the  original  or  creating  cause  of 
matter  in  motion,  which,  in  turn,  becomes  the  cause 
(or,  at  least,  the  conditional  condition)  of  mind  of 
a  lower  order.  This  view,  however,  need  not  detain 
us,  inasmuch  as  it  can  only  be  held  by  those  who, 
on  grounds  independent  of  philosophical  thinking, 
already  believe  in  mind  as  the  First  Cause  or  Eternal 
Being  :  this  belief  granted,  there  is,  of  course,  an  end 
of  any  question  as  between  Spiritualism  and  Mate- 
rialism. I  have,  therefore,  only  mentioned  this 
possible  phase  of  spiritualistic  theory,  in  order  to 
show  that  the  theory  of  Materialism  as  applied  to  a 
human  being  does  not  necessarily  involve  an  ex- 
tension of  that  theory  to  the  cosmos.  But  I  hold 
this  distinction  as  of  no  practical  value :  it  merely 
indicates  a  logical  possibility  which  no  one  would 
be  likely  to  entertain  except  on  grounds  independent 
of  those  upon  which  the  philosophical  dispute  between 
Spiritualism  and  Materialism  must  be  confined. 

Of  more  practical  importance  is  the  remark  already 
made,  namely,  that  the  fundamental  or  diagnostic 
distinction  between  these  two  species  of  theory 
consists  only  in  the  views  which  they  severally  take 
on  the  question  of  causality.  This  remark  is  of 
practical  importance,  because  in  the  debate  between 

E 


50  Monism. 

spiritualists  and  materialists  it  is  often  lost  sight 
of:  nay,  in  some  cases,  it  is  even  expressly  ignored. 
Obviously,  when  it  is  either  intentionally  or  uninten- 
tionally disregarded,  the  debate  ceases  to  be  directed 
to  the  question  under  discussion,  and  may  then 
wander  aimlessly  over  the  whole  field  of  collateral 
speculation.  Throughout  the  present  essay,  there- 
fore, the  discussion  will  be  restricted  to  the  only 
topic  which  we  have  to  discuss — namely,  whether 
mind  is  the  cause  of  motion,  motion  the  cause  of 
mind,  or  neither  the  cause  of  the  other. 

The  view  to  be  first  considered — namely,  that 
mind  is  the  cause  of  motion — obviously  has  one 
great  advantage  over  the  opposite  view  :  it  supposes 
the  causality  to  proceed  from  that  which  is  the 
source  of  our  idea  of  causality  (the  mind)  ;  not  from 
that  into  which  this  idea  has  been  read  by  the  mind. 
Hence,  it  is  so  far  less  difficult  to  imagine  that  mental 
changes  are  the  cause  of  bodily  changes  than  vice 
versa ;  for  upon  this  hypothesis  we  are  starting  at 
least  from  the  substance  of  immediate  knowledge, 
and  not  from  the  reflection  of  that  knowledge  in  what 
we  call  the  external  world. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  theory  of  Spiritualism 
labours  under  certain  speculative  difficulties  which 
appear  to  me  overwhelming.  The  most  formidable  of 
these  difficulties  arises  from  the  inevitable  collision  of 
the  theory  with  the  scientific  doctrine  of  the  conser- 
vation of  energy.  Whether  or  not  we  adopt  the  view 
that  all  causation  of  a  physical  kind  is  ultimately 
an  expression  of  the  fact  that  matter  and  energy 


Spiritualism.  51 

are  indestructible1,  it  is  equally  certain  that  this 
indestructibility  is  a  necessary  condition  to  the 
occurrence  of  causation  as  natural.  Therefore,  if 
the  mind  of  man  is  capable  of  breaking  in  as  an 
independent  cause  upon  the  otherwise  uniform 
system  of  natural  causation,  the  only  way  in  which 
it  could  do  so  would  be  by  either  destroying  or 
creating  certain  quanta  of  either  matter  or  energy 
or  both.  But  to  suppose  the  mind  capable  of  doing 
any  of  these  things  would  be  to  suppose  that  the 
mind  is  a  cause  in  some  other  sense  than  a  physical 
or  a  natural  cause ;  it  would  be  to  suppose  that  the 
mind  is  a  super-natural  cause,  or,  more  plainly,  that 
all  mental  activity,  so  far  as  it  is  an  efficient  cause 
of  bodily  movement,  is  of  the  nature  of  a  miracle. 

This  conclusion,  which  appears  to  me  unavoidably 
implicated  in  the  spiritualistic  hypothesis,  is  not 
merely  improbable  per  se,  but  admits  of  being 
shown  virtually  impossible  if  we  proceed  to  con- 
sider the  consequences  to  which  it  necessarily 
leads.  A  sportsman,  for  example,  pulls  the  trigger 

1  In  the  opinion  of  some  modern  writers  the  indestructibility  of 
matter  and  the  conservation  of  energy  are  alone  sufficient  to  explain 
all  the  facts  of  natural  causation.  '  For,'  it  is  urged,  '  if  in  any  case 
similar  antecedents  did  not  determine  similar  consequents,  on  one  or 
other  of  these  occasions  some  quantum  of  force,  or  of  matter,  or  of 
both,  must  have  disappeared — or,  which  is  the  same  thing,  the  law 
of  causation  cannot  have  been  constant.'  In  a  future  chapter  I  shall 
have  to  recur  to  this  view.  Meanwhile  I  have  only  to  observe  that 
whether  or  not  the  law  of  causation  is  nothing  more  than  a  re-state- 
ment of  the  fact  that  matter  and  energy  are  indestructible,  it  is 
equally  true  that  this  fact  is  at  least  a  necessary  condition  to  the 
operation  of  that  law. 

E  a 


52  Monism. 

of  a  gun,  thereby  initiating  a  long  train  of  physical 
causes,  which  we  may  take  up  at  the  point  where 
the  powder  is  discharged,  the  shot  propelled,  and 
the  bird  dropped.  Here  the  man's  volition  is 
supposed  to  have  broken  in  upon  the  otherwise 
continuous  stream  of  physical  causes — first  by 
modifying  the  molecular  movements  of  his  brain, 
so  as  to  produce  the  particular  co-ordination  of 
neuro-muscular  movement  required  to  take  accurate 
aim  and  to  fire  at  the  right  moment ;  next  by 
converting  a  quantity  of  gunpowder  into  gas, 
propelling  a  quantity  of  lead  through  the  air ;  and 
finally,  by  killing  a  bird.  Now,  without  tracing 
the  matter  further  than  this,  let  us  consider  how 
enormous  a  change  the  will  of  the  man  has  intro- 
duced, even  by  so  trivial  an  exercise  of  its  activity. 
No  doubt  the  first  change  in  the  material  world  was 
exceedingly  slight :  the  molecular  movement  in 
the  cortex  of  his  brain  was  probably  not  more 
than  might  be  dynamically  represented  by  some 
small  fraction  of  a  foot-pound.  But  so  intricate 
is  the  nexus  of  physical  causality  throughout  the 
whole  domain  of  Nature,  that  the  intervention  of 
even  so  minute  a  disturbance  ab  extra  is  obviously 
bound  to  continue  to  assert  an  influence  of  ever- 
widening  extent  as  well  as  of  everlasting  duration. 
The  heat  generated  by  the  explosion  of  the  powder, 
the  changed  disposition  of  the  shot,  the  death  of 
the  bird — leading  to  innumerable  physical  changes 
as  to  stoppage  of  many  mechanical  processes 
previously  going  on  in  the  bird's  body,  loss  of 


Spiritualism.  53 

animal  heat,  &c.,  and  also  to  innumerable  vital 
changes,  leading  to  a  stoppage  of  all  the  mechanical 
changes  which  the  bird  would  have  helped  to 
condition  had  it  lived  to  die  some  other  death, 
to  propagate  its  kind,  and  thus  indirectly  condition 
an  incalculable  number  of  future  changes  that 
would  have  been  brought  about  by  the  ever 
increasing  number  of  its  descendants — these  and 
an  indefinite  number  of  other  physical  changes 
must  all  be  held  to  have  followed  as  a  direct 
consequence  of  the  man's  volition  thus  suddenly 
breaking  in  as  an  independent  cause  upon  the 
otherwise  uniform  course  of  Nature.  Now,  I  say 
that,  apart  from  some  system  of  pre-established 
harmony,  it  appears  simply  inconceivable  that  the 
order  of  Nature  could  be  maintained  at  all,  if  it 
were  thus  liable  to  be  interfered  with  at  any 
moment  in  any  number  of  points.  And  if  the 
spiritualist  takes  refuge  in  the  further  hypothesis 
of  a  pre-established  harmony  between  acts  of 
human  (not  to  add  brute)  volition  and  causes  of 
a  natural  kind,  we  have  only  to  observe  that  he 
thus  lands  himself  in  a  speculative  position  which 
is  practically  identical  with  that  occupied  by  the 
materialist.  For  the  only  difference  between  the 
two  positions  then  is  that  the  necessity  which  the 
materialist  takes  to  be  imposed  on  human  volition 
by  the  system  of  natural  causation,  is  now  taken 
by  the  spiritualist  to  be  equally  imposed  by  a  super- 
natural volition.  The  necessity  which  binds  the 
human  volition  must  be  equally  rigid  in  either 


54 


Monism. 


case ;  and  therefore  it  can  make  no  practical 
difference  whether  the  source  of  it  be  regarded 
as  natural  or  super-natural,  material  or  mental :  so 
that  a  man  be  fated  to  will  only  in  certain  ways — 
and  this  with  all  the  rigour  which  belongs  to  causa- 
tion as  physical — it  is  scarcely  worth  while  to 
dispute  whether  the  predestination  is  of  God  or 
of  Nature.  There  can  be  no  question,  however, 
that  in  this  matter  the  possibility  which  I  have 
supposed  to  be  suggested  by  the  spiritualist  is 
more  far-fetched  than  that  which  obviously  lies 
to  the  hand  of  the  materialist ;  and,  moreover,  that 
it  too  plainly  wears  the  appearance  of  a  desperate 
device  to  save  a  hollow  theory. 

It  remains  to  add  that  this  great  difficulty  against 
the  spiritualistic  theory  has  been  revealed  in  all  its 
force  only  during  the  present  generation.  Since 
the  days  of  fetishism,  indeed,  the  difficulty  has 
always  been  an  increasing  one — growing  with  the 
growth  of  the  perception  of  uniformity  on  the  one 
hand,  and  of  mechanical  as  distinguished  from 
volitional  agency  on  the  other.  But  it  was  not 
until  the  correlation  of  all  the  physical  forces  had 
been  proved  by  actual  experiment,  and  the  scientific 
doctrine  of  the  conservation  of  energy  became  as 
a  consequence  firmly  established,  that  the  difficulty 
in  question  assumed  the  importance  of  a  logical 
barrier  to  the  theory  of  mental  changes  acting  as 
efficient  causes  of  material  changes. 


CHAPTER  II. 

MATERIALISM. 

THIS  is  the  theory  which  presents  great  fasci- 
nation to  the  student  of  physical  science.  By 
laborious  investigation  physiology  has  established 
the  fact  beyond  the  reach  of  rational  dispute,  that 
there  is  a  constant  relation  of  concomitancy 
between  cerebral  action  and  thought.  Within 
experience  mind  is  found  in  constant  and  definite 
association  with  that  highly  complex  and  peculiar 
disposition  of  matter  called  a  living  brain.  The 
size  and  elaboration  of  this  peculiar  structure 
throughout  the  animal  kingdom  stand  in  con- 
spicuous proportion  to  the  degree  of  intelligence 
displayed  ;  while  the  impairment  of  this  structure, 
whether  by  congenital  defect,  mutilation,  anaemia, 
decay,  or  appropriate  poison,  entails  corresponding 
impairment  of  mental  processes.  Thus  much  being 
established,  no  reasonable  man  can  hesitate  in 
believing  the  relation  between  neurosis  and  psy- 
chosis to  be  a  constant  and  concomitant  relation, 
so  that  the  step  between  this,  and  regarding  it  as 
a  causal  relation,  seems  indeed  a  small  one.  For, 
in  all  matters  of  physical  inquiry,  whenever  we 


56  Monism. 

have  proved  a  constant  relation  of  concomitancy 
in  a  sequence  A  B,  we  call  A  the  cause  of  B ;  and, 
therefore,  it  has  been  frequently  said  that  the 
evidence  of  causation  between  neurosis  and  psychosis 
is  recognized  causation.  Lastly,  to  fortify  this 
hypothesis,  materialists  point  to  the  doctrine  of  the 
conservation  of  energy,  which  is  supplied  by  the 
science  of  physics  as  a  sort  of  buttress  in  this 
matter  to  the  teachings  of  physiology.  For,  as 
this  doctrine  compels  us  to  believe  that  the  chain 
of  physical  causation  involved  in  cerebral  processes 
can  nowhere  be  broken  or  deflected  ab  extra,  we 
are  compelled  to  believe  that  the  mental  processes, 
which  are  correlatively  associated  with  these  cerebral 
processes,  can  nowhere  escape  from  '  the  charmed 
circle  of  the  forces,'  so  that  whether  we  look  to  the 
detailed  teachings  of  physiology,  or  to  the  more 
general  teachings  of  physics,  we  alike  perceive  that 
natural  science  appears  to  leave  no  locus  for  mind 
other  than  as  a  something  which  is  in  some  way 
a  result  of  motion. 

The  position  of  Materialism  being  thus  at  first 
sight  so  naturally  strong,  and  having  been  in  recent 
years  so  fortified  by  the  labours  of  physiology,  it  is 
not  surprising  that  in  the  present  generation 
Materialism  should  be  in  the  ascendant.  It  is 
the  simple  truth,  as  a  learned  and  temperate 
author,  speaking  from  the  side  of  theology,  has 
recently  said,  that 

'  Materialism  is  a  danger  to  which  individuals  and  societies 
will  always  be  more  or  less  exposed.  The  present  generation, 


Materialism.  57 

however,  and  especially  the  generation  which  is  growing  up, 
will  obviously  be  very  especially  exposed  to  it ;  as  much  so, 
perhaps,  as  any  generation  in  the  history  of  the  world. 
Within  the  last  thirty  years  the  great  wave  of  spiritualistic 
or  idealistic  thought  ....  has  been  receding  and  decreasing ; 
and  another,  which  is  in  the  main  driven  by  materialistic 
forces,  has  been  gradually  rising  behind,  vast  and  threatening. 
It  is  but  its  crest  that  we  at  present  see  ;  it  is  but  a  certain 
vague  shaking  produced  by  it  that  we  at  present  feel ;  but 
we  shall  probably  soon  enough  fail  not  both  to  see  and  feel 
it  fully  and  distinctly  V 

Such  being  the  present  importance  of  Mate- 
rialism, I  shall  devote  the  present  chapter  to 
a  consideration  of  this  theory.  Each  of  the  points 
in  the  argument  for  Materialism  which  I  have 
mentioned  above  admits,  of  course,  of  elaboration  ; 
but  I  think  that  their  enumeration  contains  all 
that  is  essential  to  the  theory  in  question.  It 
now  devolves  upon  us  to  inquire  whether  this 
theory  is  adequate  to  meet  the  facts. 

And  here  I  may  as  well  at  once  give  it  as  my 
own  opinion  that,  of  however  much  service  the 
theory  of  Materialism  may  be,  up  to  a  certain 
point,  it  can  never  be  accepted  by  any  competent 
mind  as  a  final  explanation  of  the  facts  with  which 
it  has  to  deal.  Unquestionable  as  its  use  may  be 
as  a  fundamental  hypothesis  in  physiology  and 
medicine,  it  is  wholly  inadequate  as  a  hypothesis 
in  philosophy.  That  is  to  say,  so  long  as  there 
is  a  constant  relation  of  concomitancy  found  by 
experience  to  obtain  between  neural  processes  and 
1  Professor  Flint,  Antitheistic  Theories,  p.  99. 


58  Monism. 

mental  processes,  so  long  no  harm  can  accrue  to 
physical  science  by  assuming,  for  its  own  purposes, 
that  this  relation  is  a  causal  one.  But  as  soon  as 
the  question  concerning  the  validity  of  this  assump- 
tion is  raised  into  the  region  of  philosophy,  it  receives 
the  answer  that  the  assumption  cannot  be  allowed 
to  pass.  For  where  the  question  becomes  one  not 
as  to  the  fact  of  the  association  but  as  to  its 
nature,  philosophy,  which  must  have  regard  to  the 
facts  of  mind  no  less  than  to  those  of  matter,  must 
pronounce  that  the  hypothesis  is  untenable  ;  for  the 
hypothesis  of  this  association  being  one  of  causality 
acting  from  neurosis  to  psychosis,  cannot  be 
accepted  without  doing  violence,  not  merely  to  our 
faculty  of  reason,  but  to  our  very  idea  of  causation 
itself. 

A  very  small  amount  of  thinking  is  enough  to 
show  that  what  I  call  my  knowledge  of  the 
external  world,  is  merely  a  knowledge  of  my  own 
mental  modifications.  A  step  further  and  I  find 
that  my  idea  of  causation  as  a  principle  in  the 
external  world  is  derived  from  my  knowledge  of 
this  principle  in  the  internal  world.  For  I  find 
that  my  idea  of  force  and  energy  in  the  external 
world  is  a  mere  projection  of  the  idea  which  I  have 
of  effort  within  the  region  of  my  own  consciousness  ; 
and  therefore  my  only  idea  of  causation  is  that 
which  is  originally  derived  from  the  experience 
which  I  have  of  this  principle  as  obtaining  among 
my  own  mental  modifications. 

If  once  we  see  plainly  that  the  idea  of  causation 


Materialism.  59 

is  derived  from  within,  and  that  what  we  call  the 
evidence  of  physical  causation  is  really  the  evidence 
of  mental  modifications  following  one  another  in 
a  definite  sequence,  we  shall  then  clearly  see,  not 
merely  that  we  have  no  evidence,  but  that  we  can 
have  no  evidence  of  causation  as  proceeding  from 
object  to  subject.  However  cogent  the  evidence 
may  appear  at  first  sight  to  be,  it  is  found  to  vanish 
like  a  cloud  as  soon  as  it  is  exposed  to  the  light 
of  adequate  contemplation.  In  the  very  act  of 
thinking  the  evidence,  we  are  virtually  denying 
its  possibility  as  evidence ;  for  as  evidence  it 
appeals  only  to  the  mind,  and  since  the  mind  can 
only  know  its  own  sequences,  the  evidence  must  be 
presenting  to  the  mind  an  account  of  its  own 
modifications  ;  from  the  mere  fact,  therefore,  of  its 
being  accepted  as  thinkable,  the  evidence  is  proved 
to  be  illusory. 

To  uneducated  men  it  appears  an  indisputable 
fact  of  '  common  sense '  that  the  colour  of  a  flower 
exists  as  perceived  in  the  flower,  apart  from  any 
relation  to  the  percipient  mind.  A  physiologist 
has  gone  further  into  the  thicket  of  things,  and 
finds  that  the  way  is  not  so  simple  as  this.  He 
regards  the  quality  of  colour  as  necessarily  related 
to  the  faculty  of  visual  perception  ;  does  not  suppose 
that  the  colour  exists  as  stick  in  the  flower,  but 
thinks  of  the  something  there  as  a  certain  order  of 
vibrations  which,  when  brought  into  relation  with 
consciousness  through  the  medium  of  certain  nerves, 
gives  rise  to  the  perception  experienced ;  and  in 


60  Monism, 

order  to  account  for  the  translation  Into  visual 
feeling  of  an  event  so  unlike  that  feeling  as  is 
the  process  taking  place  in  the  flower,  physiologists 
have  recourse  to  an  elaborate  theory,  such  as  that 
of  Helmholtz  or  Hering.  In  other  words,  physio- 
logists here  fully  recognize  that  colour,  or  any  other 
thing  perceived,  only  exists  as  perceived  in  virtue  of 
a  subjective  element  blending  with  an  objective ; 
the  thing  as  perceived  is  recognized  as  having  no 
existence  apart  from,  its  relation  to  a  percipient 
mind.  Now,  although  physiologists  are  at  one 
with  the  philosophers  thus  far,  it  is  to  be  feared 
that  very  frequently  they  are  in  the  same  position 
as  the  above-mentioned  '  uneducated  men,'  when  it 
becomes  needful  to  press  still  further  into  the 
thicket.  For  after  having  distinguished  the  neces- 
sity of  recognizing  a  mind-element  in  any  possible 
theory  of  perception,  they  forthwith  proceed  to 
disregard  this  element  when  passing  from  the 
ground  of  perception  to  that  of  thought.  Although 
the  ideas  of  matter,  motion,  causation,  and  so  on,  are 
themselves  as  much  the  offspring  of  a  thinking  mind, 
with  its  environment,  as  the  perception  of  colour  is 
a  conceiving  of  the  percipient  mind,  with  its  environ- 
ment, these  ideas  are  inconsistently  supposed  to 
stand  for  equivalent  realities  of  the  external  world — 
to  truly  represent  things  that  are  virtually  indepen- 
dent of  any  necessary  relation  to  mind.  Or,  as  the 
case  has  recently  been  well  put  by  Principal  Caird  : 

'  You  cannot  get  mind  as  an  ultimate  product  of  matter, 
for  in  the  very  attempt  to  do  so  you  have  already  begun  with 


Materialism.  61 

mind.  The  easiest  step  of  any  such  inquiry  involves  cate- 
gories of  thought,  and  it  is  in  terms  of  thought  that  the 
very  problem  you  are  investigating  can  be  so  much  as  stated. 
You  cannot  start  in  your  investigations  with  a  bare,  self- 
identical,  objective  fact,  stripped  of  every  ideal  element  or 
contribution  from  thought.  The  least  and  lowest  part  of 
outward  observation  is  not  an  independent  entity — fact  minus 
mind,  and  out  of  which  mind  may,  somewhere  or  other,  be 
seen  to  emerge  ;  but  it  is  fact  or  object  as  it  appears  to  an 
observing  mind,  in  the  medium  of  thought,  having  mind  or 
thought  as  an  inseparable  factor  of  it.  Whether  there  be 
such  a  thing  as  an  absolute  world  outside  of  thought,  whether 
there  be  such  things  as  matter  and  material  atoms  existing 
in  themselves  before  any  mind  begins  to  perceive  or  think 
about  them,  is  not  the  question  before  us.  If  it  were  possible 
to  conceive  of  such  atoms,  at  any  rate  you,  before  you  begin 
to  make  anything  of  them,  must  think  them ;  and  you  can 
never,  by  thinking  about  atoms,  prove  that  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  thought  other  than  as  an  ultimate  product  of  atoms. 
Before  you  could  reach  thought  or  mind  as  a  last  result  you 
must  needs  eliminate  from  it  the  data  of  the  problem  with 
which  you  start,  and  that  you  can  never  do,  any  more  than 
you  can  stand  on  your  own  shoulders  or  outstrip  your  own 
shadow  ....  In  one  word,  to  constitute  the  reality  of  the 
outward  world — to  make  possible  the  minimum  of  knowledge, 
nay,  the  very  existence  for  us  of  molecules  and  atoms — you 
must  needs  presuppose  that  thought  or  thinking  self,  which 
some  would  persuade  us  is  to  be  educed  or  evolved  from 
them. ...  To  make  thought  a  function  of  matter  is  thus, 
simply,  to  make  thought  a  function  of  itself1.' 

From  this  reasoning  there  can  be  no  escape ; 
and  it  is  more  rational  for  a  man  to  believe  that 
colour  exists  as  such  in  a  flower  than,  after  having 
plainly  seen  that  such  cannot  be  the  case,  forthwith 

1  Philosophy  of  Religion,  pp.  95,  99,  and  101. 


62  Monism. 

to  disregard  the  teaching  of  this  analogy,  and  to 
imagine  that  any  apparent  evidence  of  mind  as 
a  result  of  matter  or  motion  can  possibly  be  enter- 
tained as  real  evidence. 

Remembering,  then,  that  from  the  nature  of  this 
particular  case  it  is  as  impossible  for  mind  to  prove 
its  own  causation  as  it  is  for  water  to  rise  above  its 
source,  it  may  still  be  well,  for  the  sake  of  further 
argument,  to  sink  this  general  consideration,  and  to 
regard  such  spurious  evidence  of  causation  as  is 
presented  by  Materialism,  without  prejudice  arising 
from  its  being primd  facie  inadmissible. 

Materialists,  as  already  observed,  are  fond  of 
saying  that  the  evidence  of  causation  from  neurosis  to 
psychosis  is  as  good  as  such  evidence  can  be  proved 
to  be  in  any  other  case.  Now,  quite  apart  from  the 
general  considerations  just  adduced  to  show  that 
from  the  peculiar  nature  of  this  case  there  can  here 
be  no  such  evidence  at  all — quite  apart  from  this, 
and  treating  the  problem  on  the  lower  ground  of 
the  supposed  analogy,  it  may  be  clearly  shown  that 
the  statement  is  untrue.  For  a  little  thought  will 
show  that  in  point  of  fact  the  only  resemblance 
between  this  supposed  case  of  causation  and  all 
other  cases  of  recognized  causation,  consists  in  the 
invariability  of  the  correlation  between  cerebral 
processes  and  mental  processes ;  in  all  other  points 
the  analogy  fails.  For  in  all  cases  of  recognized 
causation  there  is  a  perceived  connexion  between 
the  cause  and  the  effect ;  the  antecedents  are 
physical,  and  the  consequents  are  physical.  But  in 


Materialism.  63 

the  case  before  us  there  is  no  perceived,  or  even 
conceivable,  connexion  between  the  cause  and  the 
effect ;  for  the  causes  are  supposed  to  be  physical 
and  the  effects  mental.  And  the  antithesis  thus 
posited  is  alone  sufficient  to  separate  toto  coelo  the 
case  of  causation  supposed  from  that  of  all  cases  of 
causation  recognized.  From  the  singularly  clear 
and  well-balanced  statement  of  this  subject  given  by 
Professor  Allman  in  his  Presidential  Address  before 
the  British  Association.  I  may  here  fitly  quote  the 
following : — 

'  If  we  could  see  any  analogy  between  thought  and  any 
one  of  the  admitted  phenomena  of  matter,  we  should  be 
justified  in  the  first  of  these  conclusions  (i.  e.  that  of 
Materialism)  as  the  simplest,  and  as  affording  a  hypothesis 
most  in  accordance  with  the  comprehensiveness  of  natural 
laws  ;  but  between  thought  and  the  physical  phenomena  of 
matter  there  is  not  only  no  analogy,  but  no  conceivable 
analogy ;  and  the  obvious  and  continuous  path  which  we 
have  hitherto  followed  up  in  our  reasonings  from  the 
phenomena  of  lifeless  matter  through  those  of  living  matter 
here  comes  suddenly  to  an  end.  The  chasm  between 
unconscious  life  and  thought  is  deep  and  impassable,  and  no 
transitional  phenomena  can  be  found  by  which,  as  by  a  bridge, 
we  may  span  it  over  V 

And,  not  unduly  to  multiply  quotations,  I  shall 
only  adduce  one  more  from  another  of  the  few 
eminent  men  of  science  who  have  seen  their  way 
clearly  in  this  matter,  and  have  expressed  what  they 
have  seen  in  language  as  clear  as  their  vision. 
Professor  Tyndall  writes  : — 

1  British  Association  Repoit,  1879,  P-  *&• 


64  Monism. 

'  The  passage  from  the  physics  of  the  brain  to  the  corre- 
sponding facts  of  consciousness  is  unthinkable.  Granted 
that  a  definite  thought  and  a  definite  molecular  action  in  the 
brain  occur  simultaneously,  we  do  not  possess  the  intellectual 
organ,  nor  apparently  any  rudiment  of  the  organ,  which 
would  enable  us  to  pass,  by  a  process  of  reasoning,  from  the 
one  phenomenon  to  the  other.  They  appear  together  but  we 
do  not  know  why.  Were  our  minds  and  senses  so  expanded, 
strengthened,  and  illuminated,  as  to  enable  us  to  see  and  feel 
the  very  molecules  of  the  brain  ;  were  we  capable  of  following 
all  their  motions,  all  their  groupings,  all  their  electrical  dis- 
charges, if  such  there  be  ;  and  were  we  intimately  acquainted 
with  the  corresponding  states  of  thought  and  feeling,  we 
should  be  as  far  as  ever  from  the  solution  of  the  problem. 
How  are  these  physical  processes  connected  with  the  facts 
of  consciousness  ?  The  chasm  between  the  two  classes  of 
phenomena  would  still  remain  intellectually  impassable  V 

Next,  in  all  cases  of  recognized  causation  there 
is  a  perceived  equivalency  between  cause  and  effect, 
such  equivalency  belonging  to  the  very  essence  of 
that  in  which  we  conceive  causation  to  consist. 
But  as  between  matter  and  motion  on  the  one  side, 
and  feeling  and  thought  on  the  other,  there  can  be 
no  such  equivalency  conceivable.  That  no  such 
equivalency  is  conceivable  may  be  rendered  apparent 
on  grounds  of  Materialism  itself.  For  Materialism 
is  bound  to  accept  the  fundamental  doctrine  of 
modern  physics — that,  viz.  as  to  the  conservation 
of  energy— and  therefore  it  becomes  evident  that 
unless  we  assimilate  thought  with  energy,  there  is 
no  possibility  of  a  causal  relation,  or  a  relation  of 
equivalency,  as  obtaining  between  the  one  and  the 

1  British  Association  Report,  1868.     Trans,  of  Sections,  p.  5. 


Materialism.  65 

other.  For  however  little  we  may  know  about 
brain-dynamics,  materialists,  at  least,  must  take  it 
for  granted  that  in  every  process  of  cerebration  the 
matter  and  force  concerned  are  indestructible 
quantities,  and  therefore  that  all  their  possible 
equations  are  fully  satisfied,  could  we  but  follow 
them  out.  Howsoever  complex  we  may  suppose  the 
flux  and  reflux  of  forces  to  be  within  the  structure 
of  a  living  brain,  it  is  no  more  possible  for  any  one 
of  the  forces  concerned  to  escape  from  brain  to 
mind,  than  it  would  be  for  such  an  escape  to  occur 
in  a  steam-engine  or  a  watch;  the  doctrine  of  the 
conservation  of  energy  forms  an  insuperable  bar  to 
the  supposition  that  any  equation  in  the  region  of 
physics  can  be  left  unsatisfied,  in  order  to  pass  over 
and  satisfy  some  other  equation  in  the  region  of 
psychics. 

Of  course  in  saying  this  I  am  aware  that  some  of 
the  more  clear-sighted  of  the  materialists  have 
plainly  perceived  this  difficulty  in  all  its  magnitude, 
and  so  have  felt  that  unless  it  can  be  met,  any  theory 
of  Materialism  must  necessarily  contain  a  radical 
contradiction  of  principles.  Some  few  materialists 
have  therefore  sought  to  meet  the  difficulty  in  the 
only  way  it  can  be  met,  viz.  by  boldly  asserting 
the  possibility  of  thought  and  energy  being  trans- 
mutable.  On  this  view  thought  becomes  a  mode 
of  motion,  and  takes  its  rank  among  the  forces  as 
identical  in  nature  with  heat,  light,  electricity,  and 
the  rest.  But  this  view  is  also  inherently  im- 
possible. For  suppose,  as  a  matter  of  argument, 

F 


66  Monism. 

that  physiologists  should  discover  a  mechanical  equi- 
valent of  thought,  so  that  we  might  estimate  the 
value  of  a  calculation  in  thermal  units,  or  the  '  labour 
of  love '  in  foot-pounds  :  still  we  should  not  be 
out  of  our  difficulties  ;  we  should  only  have  to  cut 
a  twist  of  flax  to  find  a  lock  of  iron.  For  by  thus 
assimilating  thought  with  energy,  we  should  in  no 
wise  have  explained  the  fundamental  antithesis  be- 
tween subject  and  object.  The  fact  would  remain, 
if  possible,  more  unaccountable  than  ever,  that 
mind  should  present  absolutely  no  point  of  real 
analogy  with  motion.  Involved  with  the  essential 
idea  of  motion  is  the  idea  of  extension  ;  suppress 
the  latter  and  the  former  must  necessarily  vanish, 
for  motion  only  means  transition  in  space  of 
something  itself  extended.  But  thought,  as  far 
as  we  can  possibly  know  it,  is  known  and  distin- 
guished by  the  very  peculiarity  of  not  having 
extension.  Therefore,  even  if  we  were  to  find 
a  mechanical  equivalent  of  thought,  thought  would 
still  not  be  proved  a  mode  of  motion.  On  the 
contrary,  what  would  be  proved  would  be  that,  in 
becoming  transformed  into  thought,  energy  had 
ceased  to  be  energy;  in  passing  out  of  its  relation 
to  space  it  would  cease  to  exist  as  energy,  and  if 
it  again  passed  into  that  relation  it  would  only  be 
by  starting  de  novo  on  a  new  course  of  history. 
Therefore  the  proof  that  thought  has  a  mechanical 
equivalent  would  simply  amount  to  the  proof,  not 
that  thought  is  energy,  but  that  thought  destroys 
energy.  And  if  Materialism  were  to  prove  this, 


Materialism.  67 

Materialism  would  commit  suicide.  For  if  once  it 
were  proved  that  the  relation  of  energy  to  thought 
is  such  that  thought  is  able  to  absorb  or  tempo- 
rarily to  annihilate  energy,  the  whole  argument 
of  Materialism  would  be  inverted,  and  whatever 
evidence  there  is  of  causation  as  between  mind 
and  matter  would  become  available  in  all  its  force 
on  the  side  of  Spiritualism.  This  seems  plain, 
for  if  it  even  were  conceivable — which  most 
distinctly  it  is  not — that  a  motor  could  ever 
become  a  motive,  and  so  pass  from  the  sphere  of 
dynamics  into  the  sphere  of  consciousness,  the 
fact  would  go  to  prove,  not  that  the  motor  was 
the  cause  of  the  motive,  but  rather  that  the  motive 
was  the  cause  of  destroying  the  motor ;  so  that  at 
that  point  the  otherwise  unbroken  chain  of  physical 
sequences  was  interrupted  by  the  motive  striking 
in  upon  it,  and  in  virtue  of  the  mysterious  power 
supposed  to  have  been  proved  by  physiology, 
cancelling  the  motor,  so  allowing  the  nerve-centre 
to  act  as  determined  by  the  motive. 

Of  course  I  wish  it  to  be  understood  that  I  believe 
we  are  here  dealing  with  what  I  may  call,  in  perhaps 
suitably  contradictory  terms,  inconceivable  concep- 
tions. But  let  it  be  remembered  that  I  am  not 
responsible  for  this  ambiguity ;  I  am  only  showing 
what  must  be  the  necessary  outcome  of  analysis  if 
we  begin  by  endeavouring  phenomenally  to  unite 
the  most  antithetical  of  elements — mind  and  motion. 
Materialism,  at  least,  will  not  be  the  gainer  should 
it  ever  be  proved  that  in  the  complex  operations 
F  2 


68  Monism. 

of  the  brain  a  unique  exception  occurs  to  the 
otherwise  universal  law  of  the  conservation  of  energy 
in  space. 

We  may,  therefore,  quit  the  suggestion  that  the 
difficulty  experienced  by  Materialism  of  showing 
an  equivalency  between  neurosis  and  psychosis 
can  ever  be  met  by  assuming  that  some  day 
mental  processes  may  admit  of  being  expressed 
in  terms  of  physical.  But  before  leaving  this 
difficulty  with  regard  to  equivalency,  I  may 
mention  one  other  point  that  seems  to  me  of 
importance  in  connexion  with  it.  I  have  already 
said  that  if  we  suppose  causation  to  proceed  from 
brain  to  mind,  we  must  suppose  this  essential 
requirement  of  equivalency  between  the  cerebral 
causes  and  the  mental  effects  to  be  satisfied  some- 
where. But  where  are  we  to  say  that  it  is  satisfied  ? 
Even  if  we  suppose  that  thought  has  a  mechanical 
equivalent,  and  that  causation  proceeds  in  the 
direction  from  energy  to  thought,  still,  when  we 
have  regard  to  the  supposed  effects,  we  find  that 
even  yet  they  bear  no  kind  of  equivalency  to  their 
supposed  causes.  The  brain  of  a  Shakespeare 
probably  did  not,  as  a  system,  exhibit  so  much 
energy  as  does  the  brain  of  an  elephant ;  and  the 
cerebral  operations  of  a  Darwin  may  not  have  had 
a  very  perceptibly  larger  mechanical  equivalent 
than  those  of  a  banker's  clerk.  Yet  in  the  world 
of  thought  the  difference  between  our  estimate  of 
the  results,  or  'work  done,'  in  these  cases  is  such 
as  to  drive  all  ideas  of  equivalency  to  the  winds. 


Materialism.  69 

Doubtless,  a  materialist  will  answer  that  it  is  not 
fair  to  take  our  estimate  of  '  work  done '  in  the 
world  of  mind  as  the  real  equivalent  of  the  energy 
supposed  to  have  passed  over  from  the  world  of 
motion,  seeing  that  our  estimate  is  based,  not  on 
the  quantitative  amount  of  thought  produced,  but 
rather  on  its  qualitative  character  with  reference 
to  the  social  requirements  of  the  race.  But  to  this 
it  is  enough  to  answer  that  we  have  no  means  of 
gauging  the  quantity  of  thought  produced  other 
than  by  having  regard  to  its  effects  in  the  world 
of  mind,  and  this  we  cannot  do  except  by  having 
regard  to  its  qualitative  character.  Many  a  man, 
for  instance,  must  have  consumed  more  than  a 
thousand  times  the  brain-substance  and  brain- 
energy  that  Shelley  expended  over  his  '  Ode  to 
a  Skylark,'  and  yet  as  a  result  have  produced  an 
utterly  worthless  poem.  Now,  in  what  way  are  we 
to  estimate  the  '  work  done '  in  two  such  cases, 
except  by  looking  to  the  relative  effects  produced 
in  the  only  region  where  they  are  produced,  viz. 
in  the  region  of  mind  ?  Yet,  when  we  do  so 
estimate  them,  what  becomes  of  the  evidence  of 
equivalency  between  the  physical  causes  and  the 
psychical  effects  ? 

Now  if  thus,  whether  or  not  we  try  to  form  an 
estimate,  it  is  impossible  to  show  any  semblance 
of  equivalency  between  the  supposed  causes  and 
the  alleged  effects,  how  can  any  one  be  found  to 
say  that  the  evidence  of  causation  is  here  as  valid 
as  it  is  in  any  other  case?  The  truth  rather  is 


70  Monism. 

that  the  alleged  effects  stand  out  of  every  relation 
to  the  supposed  causes,  with  the  exception  only  of 
being  associated  in  time. 

There  still  remains  one  other  enormous  difficulty 
in  the  way  of  the  theory  of  Materialism  ;  it  neces- 
sarily embodies  the  theory  of  conscious  automatism, 
and  is  therefore  called  upon  to  explain  why  con- 
sciousness and  thought  have  ever  appeared  upon 
the  scene  of  things  at  all.  That  this  is  the  necessary 
position  of  Materialism  is  easily  proved  as  follows. 
We  have  already  seen  that  Materialism  would 
commit  suicide  by  supposing  that  energy  could 
be  transmuted  into  thought,  for  this  would  amount 
to  nothing  short  of  supposing  the  destruction  of 
energy  as  such ;  and  to  suppose  energy  thus 
destructible  would  be  to  open  wide  the  door  of 
spiritualism.  Materialism,  therefore,  is  logically 
bound  to  argue  in  this  way :  We  cannot  conceive 
of  a  conscious  idea,  or  mental  change,  as  in  any  way 
affecting  the  course  of  a  cerebral  reflex,  or  material 
change ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  our  knowledge 
of  the  conservation  of  energy  teaches  us  as  an 
axiom  that  the  cerebral  changes  must  determine 
each  other  in  their  sequence  as  in  a  continuous 
series.  Nowhere  can  we  suppose  the  physical 
process  to  be  interrupted  or  diverted  by  the 
psychical  process  ;  and  therefore  we  must  conclude 
that  thought  and  volition  really  play  no  part 
whatever  in  determining  action.  Thoughts  and 
feelings  are  but  indices  which  show  in  the  mirror 
of  the  mind  certain  changes  that  are  proceeding 


Materialism.  71 

in  the  matter  of  the  brain,  and  are  as  inefficient 
in  influencing  those  changes  as  the  shadow  of 
a  cloud  is  powerless  to  direct  the  movements 
of  that  of  which  it  is  the  shadow. 

But  when  Materialism  reaches,  in  a  clear  and 
articulate  manner,  this  inference  as  a  conclusion 
necessary  from  its  premises,  it  becomes  opposed 
at  once  to  common  sense  and  to  the  requirements 
of  methodical  reason.  It  becomes  opposed  to 
common  sense  because  we  all  feel  it  is  practically 
impossible  to  believe  that  the  world  would  now 
have  been  exactly  what  it  is  even  if  consciousness, 
thought,  and  volition  had  never  appeared  upon 
the  scene — that  railway  trains  would  have  been 
running  filled  with  mindless  passengers,  or  that 
telephones  would  have  been  invented  by  brains 
that  could  not  think  to  speak  to  ears  that  could 
not  hear.  And  the  conclusion  is  opposed  to  the 
requirements  of  methodical  reason,  because  reason 
to  be  methodical  is  bound  to  have  an  answer  to 
the  question  that  immediately  arises  from  the 
conclusion.  This  question  simply  is,  Why  have 
consciousness,  thought,  and  volition  ever  been 
called  into  existence ;  and  why  are  they  related, 
as  they  are  related,  to  cerebral  action?  Materialism, 
by  here  undertaking  to  prove  that  these  things 
stand  uselessly  isolated  from  all  other  things,  is 
bound  to  show  some  reason  why  they  ever  came 
to  be,  and  to  be  what  they  are.  For  observe, 
it  is  not  merely  that  these  things  exist  in  a  sup- 
posed unnecessary  relation  to  all  other  things ; 


72  Monism. 

the  fact  to  be  explained  is  that  they  exist  irt 
a  most  intimately  woven  and  invariable  connexion 
with  certain  highly  complex  forms  of  organic 
structure  and  certain  highly  peculiar  distributions 
of  physical  force.  Yet  these  unique  and  extra- 
ordinary things  are  supposed  by  automatism  to 
be  always  results  and  never  causes  ;  in  the  theatre 
of  things  they  are  supposed  to  be  always  spectators 
and  never  actors  ;  in  the  laboratory  of  life  they 
are  supposed  to  be  always  by-products;  and 
therefore  in  the  order  of  nature  they  are  supposed 
to  have  no  raison  d'etre.  Such  a  state  of  matters 
would  be  accountable  enough  if  the  stream  of 
mental  changes  were  but  partly,  occasionally,  and 
imperfectly  associated  with  the  stream  of  material 
changes ;  but  as  the  association  is  so  minute, 
invariable,  and  precise,  the  hypothesis  of  the 
association  being  merely  accidental,  or  not  requiring 
explanation,  becomes,  at  the  bar  of  methodical 
reasoning,  self-convicted  of  absurdity. 

The  state  of  the  case,  then,  simply  is  that  two  dis- 
tinct facts  stand  to  be  explained  by  the  theory  of 
conscious  automatism — first,  why  psychosis  should 
ever  have  been  developed  as  a  mysterious  appen- 
dage to  neurosis  ;  and,  secondly,  why  the  associa- 
tion between  these  things  should  be  so  intimate 
and  precise.  Assuredly,  on  the  principles  of 
evolution,  which  materialists  at  least  cannot  afford 
to  disregard,  it  would  be  a  wholly  anomalous  fact 
that  so  wide  and  general  a  class  of  phenomena  as 
those  of  mind  should  have  become  developed  in 


Materialism.  73 

constantly  ascend  ing  degrees  throughout  the  animal 
kingdom,  if  they  are  entirely  without  use  to 
animals.  If  psychosis  is,  as  supposed,  a  function 
of  neurosis,  the  doctrine  of  natural  selection  alone 
would  forbid  us  to  imagine  that  this  function  differs 
from  all  other  functions  in  being  itself  functionless. 
If  it  would  be  detrimental  to  the  theory  of  natural 
selection  that  any  one  isolated  structure — such  as 
the  tail  of  a  rattlesnake — should  be  adapted  to 
perform  a  function  useless  to  the  animal  possessing 
it,  how  utterly  destructive  of  that  theory  would 
be  the  fact  that  all  the  phenomena  of  mind  have 
been  elaborated  as  functions  of  nerve-tissue 
without  any  one  of  them  ever  having  been  of  any 
use  either  to  the  individual  or  to  the  species. 
And  the  difficulty  that  thus  arises  is  magnified 
without  limit  when  we  remember  that  the  pheno- 
mena of  mind  are  invariable  in  their  association 
with  cerebral  structure,  grade  for  grade,  and 
process  for  process. 

It  is  of  no  argumentative  use  to  point  to  the 
fact  that  many  adaptive  movements  in  animals 
are  performed  by  nerve-centres  apart  from  any 
association  with  consciousness  or  volition,  because 
all  the  facts  on  this  head  go  to  prove  that  con- 
sciousness and  volition  come  in  most  suggestively 
just  where  adaptive  movements  begin  to  grow 
varied  and  complex,  and  then  continue  to  develop 
with  a  proportional  reference  to  the  growing 
variety  and  complexity  of  these  movements. 
The  facts,  therefore,  irresistibly  lead  to  the 


74  Monism. 

conclusion  (if  we  argue  here  as  we  should  in  the 
case  of  any  other  function)  that  consciousness 
and  volition  are  functions  of  nerve-tissue  super- 
added  to  its  previous  functions,  in  order  to  meet 
new  and  more  complex  demands  on  its  powers 
of  adaptation. 

Neither  is  it  of  any  argumentative  use  to  point 
to  the  fact  that  adaptive  actions  which  originally 
are  performed  with  conscious  volition  may  by 
practice  come  to  be  performed  without  conscious 
volition.  For  it  is  certain  that  no  adaptive  action 
of  quite  a  novel  kind  is  ever  performed  from  the 
first  without  consciousness  of  its  performance, 
and  therefore,  although  it  is  true  that  by  repeti- 
tion its  performance  may  become  mechanical  or 
unconscious,  this  does  not  prove  that  consciousness 
was  without  use  in  producing  the  adaptive  action. 
It  only  proves  that  after  a  nervous  mechanism 
has  been  elaborated  by  the  help  of  consciousness, 
consciousness  may  be  withdrawn  and  leave  the 
finished  mechanism  to  work  alone  ;  the  structure 
having  been  completed,  the  scaffolding  necessary 
to  its  completion  may  be  removed. 

But  passing  over  this  difficulty  which  the  theory 
of  conscious  automatism  seems  bound  to  encounter 
in  its  collision  with  the  theory  of  natural  selection, 
the  most  insuperable  of  all  its  difficulties  arises 
from  the  bare  fact,  which  it  cannot  explain,  that 
conscious  intelligence  exists,  and  exists  in  the 
most  intimate  relation  with  one  peculiar  kind  of 
material  structure.  For  automatists  must  concede 


Materialism. 


75 


that  the  evidence  of  causation  in  the  region  of 
mind  is  at  least  as  cogent  as  it  is  in  the  region 
of  matter,  seeing  that  the  whole  science  of 
psychology  is  only  rendered  possible  as  a  science 
by  the  fundamental  fact  of  observation  that  mental 
antecedents  determine  mental  consequents.  There- 
fore, if  we  call  a  physical  sequence  A,  £,  C,  and 
a  mental  sequence  a,  l>,  c,  automatists  have  to 
explain,  not  merely  why  there  should  be  such 
a  thing  as  a  mental  sequence  at  all,  but  also  why 
the  sequence  a,  b,  c  should  always  proceed,  link 
for  link,  with  the  sequence  A,  £,  C.  It  clearly 
is  no  answer  to  say  that  the  sequence  A,  B,  C 
implies  the  successive  activity  of  certain  definite 
nerve-centres  A',  £',  C\  which  have  for  their 
subjective  effects  the  sequence  a,  b,  c,  so  that 
whenever  the  sequence  A,  £,  C  occurs  the  sequence 
a,  b,  c  must  likewise  occur.  This  is  no  answer, 
because  it  merely  restates  the  hypothesis  of 
automatism,  and  begs  the  whole  question  to  be 
discussed.  What  methodical  reason  demands  as 
an  answer  is  simply  why  the  sequence  A,  £,  C, 
even  though  we  freely  grant  it  due  to  the 
successive  activity  of  certain  definite  nerve-centres, 
should  be  attended  by  the  sequence  a,  6,  c. 
Reason  perceives  clearly  enough  that  the  sequence 
a,  6,  c  belongs  to  a  wholly  different  category  from 
the  sequence  A,  B,  C,  the  one  being  immediately 
known  as  a  process  taking  place  in  a  something 
which  is  without  extension  or  physical  properties 
of  any  kind,  and  the  other  taking  place  in  a 


76  Monism. 

something  which  when  translated  by  the  previous 
something,  we  recognize  as  having  extension  and 
the  other  antithetical  properties  which  we  class 
together  as  physical.  There  would  of  course  be  no 
difficulty  if  the  sequence  A,  B,  C  continued 
through  any  amount  of  complexity  in  the  same 
conceivable  category  of  being ;  so  that  there 
would  be  nothing  actually  inconceivable  in  cerebral 
sequence — changes  running  through  D,  E,  F,  &c., 
to  an  extent  sufficient  to  cause  /mconscious 
automatism  of  any  degree  of  complexity.  But 
that  which  does  require  explanation  from  auto- 
matists  is  why  automatism  should  have  become 
associated  with  consciousness,  and  this  so  intimately 
that  every  change  in  the  sequence  A,  B,  C,  &c., 
is  accompanied  by  a  particular  and  corresponding 
change  in  the  sequence  a,  b,  c,  &c.  Thus,  to 
take  a  definite  illustration,  if  on  seeing  the  sun 
I  think  of  a  paper  on  solar  physics,  and  from  this 
pass  to  thinking  of  Mr.  Norman  Lockyer,  and 
from  this  to  speculating  on  the  probability  of 
certain  supposed  elements  being  really  compounds, 
there  is  here  a  definite  causal  connexion  in  the 
sequence  of  my  thoughts.  But  it  is  the  last  extrava- 
gance of  absurdity  to  tell  me  that  the  accompanying 
causal  sequences  going  on  in  my  brain  happen  to 
have  exactly  corresponded  to  the  sequences  which 
were  taking  place  in  the  mind,  the  two  trains  of  se- 
quences being  each  definite  and  coherent  in  them- 
selves, and  yet  each  proceeding  link  for  link  in  lines 
parallel  with  the  other.  Without  some  theory 


Materialism.  77 

of  pre-established  harmony — which,  of  course, 
it  is  no  part  of  automatism  to  entertain — it  would, 
on  the  doctrine  of  chances  alone,  be  impossible 
to  suppose  that  the  causal  sequences  in  the  brain 
always  happen  to  be  just  those  which,  by  running 
link  for  link  with  another  set  of  causal  sequences 
taking  place  in  the  mind,  enable  both  the  series 
to  be  definite  and  coherent  in  themselves.  There- 
fore, before  reason  can  allow  the  theory  of  auto- 
matism to  pass,  it  must  be  told  how  this  wonderful 
fact  of  parallelism  is  to  be  explained.  There 
must  be  some  connexion  between  the  intrinsically 
coherent  series  A,  £,  C  and  the  no  less  intrinsically 
coherent  sequence  a,  b>  cy  which  may  be  taken  as 
an  explanation  why  they  coincide  each  to  each. 
What  is  this  connexion  ?  We  do  not  know ; 
but  we  have  now  seen  that,  whatever  it  is,  it 
cannot  be  an  ordinary  causal  connexion — first, 
because  the  doctrine  of  the  conservation  of  energy 
makes  it  incumbent  on  us  to  believe  that  the 
procession  of  physical  cause  and  effect  is  complete 
within  the  region  of  brain — a  closed  circle,  as 
it  were,  from  which  no  energy  can,  without 
argumentative  suicide,  be  supposed  to  escape 
into  the  region  of  mind  ;  and  next,  because, 
even  were  this  difficulty  disregarded,  it  is  un- 
accountable that  the  causative  influence  (whatever 
it  is  supposed  to  be),  which  passes  over  from  the 
region  of  physics  into  that  of  psychics,  should  be 
such  as  to  render  the  psychical  series  coherent  in 
itself,  when  on  the  physical  side  the  series  must  be 


78  Monism. 

determined  by  purely  physical  conditions,  having 
no  reference  whatsoever  to  psychical  requirements. 
Thus  it  is  argumentatively  impossible  for  Ma- 
terialism to  elude  the  necessity  of  explaining  the 
kind  of  connexion  which  it  supposes  to  subsist 
between  neurosis  and  psychosis ;  and  forasmuch 
as  the  above  considerations  clearly  show  this 
connexion  cannot  be  accepted  as  one  of  ordinary 
causality  without  some  answer  being  given  to  the 
questions  which  reason  has  to  ask,  Materialism 
must  be  ruled  out  of  court  if  she  fails  to  respond 
to  the  demand.  But  it  is  no  less  clearly  impossible 
that  she  can  respond  to  the  demand,  and  therefore 
at  the  bar  of  Philosophy  Materialism  must  be 
pronounced,  for  this  as  well  as  for  the  reasons 
previously  cited,  conspicuously  inadequate  to  ac- 
count for  the  facts. 


CHAPTER   III. 

MONISM. 

WE  have  seen,  then,  that  both  the  alternative 
theories  of  Spiritualism  and  Materialism  are  found, 
when  carefully  examined,  to  be  so  beset  with 
difficulties  of  a  necessary  and  fundamental  kind,  that 
it  is  impossible  to  entertain  either  without  closing 
our  eyes  to  certain  contradictions  which  they 
severally  and  inherently  present.  We  may,  indeed, 
go  even  further  than  this,  and  affirm  that  to  suppose 
mind  the  cause  of  motion  or  motion  the  cause  of 
mind  is  equally  to  suppose  that  which  in  its  very 
nature  as  a  supposition  is  neither  true  nor  untrue, 
but  nonsensical.  For,  as  Prof.  Clifford  has  said  in 
his  essay  on  Body  and  Mind, — 

'  It  may  be  conceived  that,  at  the  same  time  with  every 
exercise  of  volition,  there  is  a  disturbance  of  the  physical 
laws  ;  but  this  disturbance,  being  perceptible  to  me,  would  be 
a  physical  fact  accompanying  the  volition,  and  could  not  be 
volition  itself,  which  is  not  perceptible  to  me.  Whether  there 
is  such  a  disturbance  of  the  physical  laws  or  no  is  a  question 
of  fact  to  which  we  have  the  best  of  reasons  for  giving 
a  negative  answer;  but  the  assertion  that  another  man's 


8o  Monism. 

volition,  a  feeling  in  his  consciousness  which  I  cannot  perceive, 
is  part  of  the  train  of  physical  facts  which  I  may  perceive, — 
this  is  neither  true  nor  untrue,  but  nonsense ;  it  is  a  com- 
bination of  words  whose  corresponding  ideas  will  not  go 
together  V 

And  seeing  that  the  correlatives  are  in  each  case 
the  same,  it  is  similarly  '  nonsense '  to  assert  the 
converse  proposition :  or,  in  other  words,  it  is 
equally  nonsense  to  speak  of  mental  action  causing 
cerebral  action,  or  of  cerebral  action  causing  mental 
action — nonsense  of  the  same  kind  as  it  would  be 
to  speak  of  the  Pickwick  Papers  causing  a  storm  at 
sea,  or  the  eruption  of  a  volcano  causing  the  forty- 
seventh  proposition  in  the  first  book  of  Euclid. 

We  see,  then,  that  two  of  the  three  possible 
theories  of  things  contain  the  elements  of  their  own 
destruction :  when  carefully  analyzed,  both  these 
theories  are  found  to  present  inherent  contradictions. 
On  this  account  the  third,  or  only  alternative  theory, 
comes  to  us  with  a  large  antecedent  presumption  in 
its  favour.  For  it  comes  to  us,  as  it  were,  on  a  clear 
field,  or  with  the  negative  advantage  of  having  no 
logical  rivals  to  contend  with.  The  other  two 
suggestions  having  been  weighed  in  the  balance  and 
found  wanting,  we  are  free  to  look  to  the  new-comer 
as  quite  unopposed.  This  new-comer  must,  indeed, 
be  interrogated  as  carefully  as  his  predecessors,  and, 
like  them,  must  be  judged  upon  his  own  merits. 
But  as  he  constitutes  our  last  possible  hope  of 
solving  the  question  which  he  professes  himself  able 

1  Lectures  ami  Essays,  vol.  ii.  pp.  56-7. 


Monism.  81 

to  solve,  the  absolute  failure  of  his  predecessors 
entitles  him  to  a  patient  hearing.  By  the  method 
of  exclusion  his  voice  is  now  the  only  voice  that 
remains  to  be  heard,  and  unless  it  can  speak  to 
better  purpose  than  the  others,  we  shall  have  no 
alternative  but  to  abandon  the  facts  as  inexplicable, 
or  to  confess  that  it  is  necessarily  impossible  for 
the  human  mind  ever  to  arrive  at  any  theory  of 
things. 

Before  proceeding  to  state  or  to  examine  this 
third  and  last  of  the  suggested  theories,  it  is  de- 
sirable— in  order  still  further  to  define  its  status 
a  priori — that  I  should  exhibit  the  reason  why  the 
two  other  suggestions  have  necessarily  failed.  For 
to  my  mind  it  is  perfectly  obvious  that  this  reason 
is  to  be  found,  and  found  only,  in  the  fact  that  they 
are  both  dualistic.  The  inherent,  the  fatal,  and 
the  closely  similar  difficulties  which  attach  to  both 
the  dualistic  theories,  attach  to  them  merely 
because  they  are  dualistic.  The  '  nonsense '  of 
each  of  them  is  really  identical,  and  arises  only 
because  they  both  make  the  same  irrational  attempt 
to  find  more  in  the  effect  than  they  have  put  into 
the  cause.  In  other  words,  both  the  dualistic 
theories  suppose  that  the  physical  chains  of  causa- 
tion is  complete  within  itself,  and  that  the  mental 
chain  is  also  complete  within  itself:  yet  they  both 
proceed  to  the  contradiction  that  one  of  these 
chains  is  able  to  allow  some  of  its  causal  influence 
to  escape,  as  it  were,  in  order  to  constitute  the 
other  chain.  It  makes  no  difference,  in  point  of 

G 


82  Monism. 

logic,  whether  such  an  escape  is  supposed  to  take 
place  from  the  physical  chain  (materialism)  or  from 
the  mental  chain  (spiritualism):  in  either  case  the 
fundamental  principle  of  causality  is  alike  impugned 
— the  principle,  that-  is,  of  there  being  an  equiva- 
lency between  cause  and  effect,  such  that  you 
cannot  get  more  out  of  your  effect  than  you  have 
put  into  your  cause.  Both  these  dualistic  theories, 
although  they  take  opposite  views  as  to  which  of 
the  two  chains  of  causation  is  the  cause  of  the  other, 
nevertheless  agree  in  supposing  that  there  are  two 
chains  of  causation,  and  that  one  of  them  does  act 
causally  upon  the  other :  and  it  is  in  this  matter 
of  their  common  consent  that  they  both  commit 
suicide.  Every  process  in  the  physical  sphere 
must  be  supposed  to  have  its  equations  satisfied 
within  that  sphere  :  else  the  doctrine  of  the  conser- 
vation of  energy  would  be  contravened,  and  thus 
the  causation  contemplated  could  no  longer  be 
contemplated  as  physical.  Similarly,  every  process 
in  the  mental  sphere  must  be  supposed  to  have  its 
equations  satisfied  within  that  sphere  :  else  the  causa- 
tion contemplated  could  no  longer  be  contemplated 
as  mental :  some  of  the  equations  must  be  supposed 
not  to  have  been  satisfied  within  the  mental  sphere, 
but  to  have  been  carried  over  into  the  physical 
sphere — thus  to  have  either  created  or  destroyed 
certain  quantities  of  energy  within  that  sphere,  and 
thus,  also,  to  have  introduced  elements  of  endless 
confusion  into  the  otherwise  orderly  system  of 
Nature. 


Monism.  83 

From  this  vice  of  radical  contradiction,  to  which 
both  the  dualistic  theories  are  committed,  the 
monistic  theory  is  free.  Moreover,  as  we  shall 
immediately  find,  it  is  free  to  combine  the  elements 
of  truth  which  severally  belong  to  both  the  other 
theories.  These  other  theories  are  each  concerned 
with  what  they  see  upon  different  sides  of  the 
same  shield.  The  facts  which  they  severally  receive 
they  severally  report,  and  their  reports  appear 
to  contradict  each  other.  But  truth  can  never  be 
really  in  contradiction  with  other  truth ;  and  it  is 
reserved  for  Monism,  by  taking  a  simultaneous  view 
of  both  sides,  to  reconcile  the  previously  apparent 
contradictions.  For  these  and  other  reasons,  which 
will  unfold  themselves  as  we  proceed,  I  fully  agree 
with  the  late  Professor  Clifford  where  he  says  of 
this  theory —  '  It  is  not  merely  a  speculation,  but 
is  a  result  to  which  all  the  greatest  minds  that  have 
studied  this  question  (the  relation  between  body 
and  mind)  in  the  right  way  have  gradually  been 
'approximating  for  a  long  time.'  This  theory  is, 
as  we  have  already  seen,  that  mental  phenomena 
and  physical  phenomena,  although  apparently 
diverse,  are  really  identical. 

If  we  thus  unite  in  a  higher  synthesis  the  elements 
both  of  spiritualism  and  of  materialism,  we  obtain  a 
product  which  satisfies  every  fact  of  feeling  on  the 
one  hand,  and  of  observation  on  the  other.  We 
have  only  to  suppose  that  the  antithesis  between 
mind  and  motion — subject  and  object — is  itself 
phenomenal  or  apparent :  not  absolute  or  real.  We 
G  2 


84  Monism. 

have  only  to  suppose  that  the  seeming  duality  is 
relative  to  our  modes  of  apprehension :  and,  there- 
fore, that  any  change  taking  place  in  the  mind,  and 
any  corresponding  change  taking  place  in  the  brain, 
are  really  not  two  changes,  but  one  change.  When 
a  violin  is  played  upon  we  hear  a  musical  sound, 
and  at  the  same  time  we  see  a  vibration  of  the 
strings.  Relatively  to  our  consciousness,  therefore, 
we  have  here  two  sets  of  changes,  which  appear  to 
be  very  different  in  kind ;  yet  we  know  that  in  an 
absolute  sense  they  are  one  and  the  same :  we  know 
that  the  diversity  in  consciousness  is  created  only 
by  the  difference  in  our  mode  of  perceiving  the 
same  events — whether  we  see  or  whether  we  hear 
the  vibration  of  the  strings.  Similarly,  we  may 
suppose  that  a  vibration  of  nerve-strings  and  a 
process  of  thought  are  really  one  and  the  same 
event,  which  is  dual  or  diverse  only  in  relation  to 
our  modes  of  perceiving  it. 

Or,  to  take  another  and  a  better  illustration,  in  an 
Edison  lamp  the  light  which  is  emitted  from  the 
burner  may  be  said  indifferently  to  be  caused  by  the 
number  of  vibrations  per  second  going  on  in  the 
carbon,  or  by  the  temperature  of  the  carbon ;  for 
this  rate  of  vibration  could  not  take  place  in  the 
carbon  without  constituting  that  degree  of  tempera- 
ture which  affects  our  eyes  as  luminous.  Similarly, 
a  train  of  thought  may  be  said  indifferently  to  be 
caused  by  brain-action  or  by  mind-action  ;  for,  ex 
hypothesis  the  one  could  not  take  place  without  the 
other.  Now  when  we  contemplate  the  phenomena 


Monism.  85 

of  volition  by  themselves,  it  is  as  though  we  were 
contemplating  the  phenomena  of  light  by  them- 
selves :  volition  is  produced  by  mind  in  brain,  just 
as  light  is  produced  by  temperature  in  carbon. 
And  just  as  we  may  correctly  speak  of  light  as  the 
cause,  say,  of  a  photograph,  so  we  may  correctly 
speak  of  volition  as  the  cause  of  bodily  movement. 
That  particular  kind  of  physical  activity  which  takes 
place  in  the  carbon  could  not  take  place  without  the 
light  which  causes  a  photograph  ;  and,  similarly, 
that  particular  kind  of  physical  activity  which  takes 
place  in  the  brain  could  not  take  place  without  the 
volition  which  causes  a  bodily  movement.  So  that 
volition  is  as  truly  a  cause  of  bodily  movement  as  is 
the  physical  activity  of  the  brain;  seeing  that,  in  an 
absolute  sense,  the  cause  is  one  and  the  same.  But 
if  we  once  clearly  perceive  that  what  in  a  relative 
sense  we  know  as  volition  is,  in  a  similar  sense, 
the  cause  of  bodily  movement,  we  terminate  the 
question  touching  the  freedom  of  the  will.  It  thus 
becomes  a  mere  matter  of  phraseology  whether 
we  speak  of  the  will  determining,  or  being  deter- 
mined by,  changes  going  on  in  the  external  world  ; 
just  as  it  is  but  a  matter  of  phraseology  whether  we 
speak  of  temperature  determining,  or  being  deter- 
mined by,  molecular  vibration.  All  the  require- 
ments alike  of  the  free-will  and  of  the  bond-will 
hypotheses  are  thus  satisfied  by  a  synthesis  which 
comprises  them  both.  On  the  one  hand,  it  would 
be  as  impossible  for  an  #;zconscious  automaton  to 
do  the  work  or  to  perform  the  adjustments  of  a 


86  Monism. 

conscious  agent,  as  it  would  be  for  an  Edison  lamp 
to  give  out  light  and  cause  a  photograph  when  not 
heated  by  an  electric  current.  On  the  other  hand, 
it  would  be  as  impossible  for  the  will  to  originate 
bodily  motion  without  the  occurrence  of  a  strictly 
physical  process  of  cerebration,  as  it  would  be  for 
light  to  shine  in  an  Edison  lamp  which  had  been 
deprived  of  its  carbon-burner. 

The  great  advantage  of  this  theory  is,  that  it 
supposes  only  one  stream  of  causation,  in  which 
both  mind  and  motion  are  simultaneously  concerned. 
The  theory,  therefore,  escapes  all  the  difficulties 
and  contradictions  with  which  both  spiritualism  and 
materialism  are  beset.  Thus,  motion  is  supposed  to 
be  producing  nothing  but  motion  ;  mind-changes 
nothing  but  mind-changes — both  producing  both 
simultaneously :  neither  could  be  what  it  is  with- 
out the  other,  because  without  the  other  neither 
could  be  the  cause  which  in  fact  it  is.  Impossible, 
therefore,  is  the  supposition  of  the  materialist  that 
consciousness  is  adventitious,  or  that  in  the  absence 
of  mind  the  changes  of  the  brain  could  be  what 
they  are ;  for  it  belongs  to  the  very  causation  of 
these  movements  that  they  should  have  a  mental 
side.  And  equally  impossible  is  the  supposition  of 
the  spiritualist  that  the  cerebral  processes  are 
adventitious,  or  that  in  the  absence  of  brain  the 
changes  of  the  mind  could  be  what  they  are ;  for  it 
belongs  to  the  very  causation  of  these  changes  that 
they  should  have  a  material  side.  Furthermore,  the 
use  of  mind  to  animals  and  to  men  is  thus  rendered 


Monism.  87 

apparent ;  for  intelligent  volition  is  thus  shown  to 
be  a  true  cause  of  adjustive  movement,  in  that  the 
cerebration  which  it  involves  could  not  otherwise 
be  possible:  the  causation  would  not  otherwise  be 
complete. 


CHAPTER   IV. 

THE  WORLD  AS  AN  EJECT. 

IN  the  Introduction  to  this  essay  I  have  sought  to 
show  that  there  are,  for  the  purposes  of  practical 
discussion,  but  three  theories  of  the  World  of  Being. 
There  is,  first,  the  theory  of  Materialism,  which 
supposes  matter  in  motion  to  be  the  ultimate  or 
self-existing  Reality,  and,  therefore,  the  cause  of 
mind.  Next,  there  is  the  theory  of  Spiritualism, 
which  supposes  mind  to  be  the  ultimate  Reality, 
and,  therefore,  the  cause  of  matter  in  motion. 
Lastly,  there  is  the  theory  of  Monism  which 
supposes  matter  in  motion  to  be  substantially 
identical  with  mind,  and,  therefore,  that  as  between 
mind  and  matter  in  motion  there  is  no  causal 
relation  either  way.  In  the  foregoing  chapters  I  have 
considered  these  three  theories,  and  argued  that 
of  them  the  last-mentioned  is  the  only  one  which 
satisfies  all  the  facts  of  feeling  on  the  one  hand, 
and  of  observation  on  the  other.  The  theory  of 
Monism  alone  is  able  to  explain,  without  inherent 
contradiction,  the  phenomena  both  of  the  sub- 
jective and  objective  spheres. 


The  World  as  an  Eject.  89 

It  is  my  present  purpose  to  extend  the  consider- 
ations already  presented.  Assuming  the  theory 
of  Monism,  I  desire  to  ascertain  the  result  to 
which  it  will  lead  when  applied  to  the  question 
whether  we  ought  to  regard  the  external  world 
as  of  a  character  mental  or  non-mental.  As  ob- 
served in  my  Rede  Lecture  (supra,  p.  33),  this 
question  has  already  been  considered  by  the  late 
Professor  Clifford,  who  decided  that  on  the  mon- 
istic theory  the  probability  pointed  towards  the 
external  world  being  of  a  character  non-mental ; 
that,  although  the  whole  universe  is  composed  of 
'  mind-stuff,'  the  universe  as  a  whole  is  mindless. 
This  decision  I  then  briefly  criticized ;  it  is  now  my 
object  to  contemplate  the  matter  somewhat  more 
in  detail. 

I  will  assume,  on  account  of  reasons  previously 
given,  that  when  we  speak  of  matter  in  motion  we 
do  not  at  all  know  what  it  is  that  moves,  nor  do  we 
know  at  all  what  it  is  that  we  mean  by  motion. 
Therefore  if.  as  unknown  quantities,  we  call  matter 
a  and  motion  b,  all  we  are  entitled  to  affirm  is  that 
a  +  b  =  z,  where  z  is  a  known  quantity,  or  mind. 
Obversely  stated,  we  may  say  that  the  known 
quantity  z  is  capable  of  being  resolved  into  the 
unknown  a  +  b.  But,  inasmuch  as  both  a  and  b  are 
unknown,  we  may  simplify  matters  by  regarding 
their  sum  as  a  single  unknown  quantity  x,  which 
we  take  to  be  substantially  identical  with  its 
obverse  aspect  known  as  z. 

Here,  then,  are  our  data.     The  theory  of  Monism 


go  Monism. 

teaches  that  what  we  perceive  as  matter  in  motion, 
x,  is  the  obverse  of  what  we  know  as  mind,  z. 
What,  then,  do  we  know  of  z  ?  In  the  first  place, 
we  well  know  that  this  is  the  only  entity  with 
which  we  are  acquainted,  so  to  speak,  at  first  hand  ; 
all  our  knowledge  of  x  (which  is  the  only  other 
knowledge  we  possess)  is  possible  only  in  so  far  as 
we  are  able  to  translate  it  into  terms  of  z.  In  the 
next  place,  we  know  that  z  is  itself  an  entity  of  the 
most  enormous  complexity.  Standing  as  a  symbol 
of  the  whole  range  of  individual  subjectivity,  it  may 
be  said  to  constitute  for  each  individual  the  symbol 
of  his  own  personality — or  the  sum  total  of  his 
conscious  life.  Now  each  individual  knows  by 
direct  knowledge  that  his  conscious  life  is,  as  I  have 
said,  of  enormous  complexity,  and  that  numberless 
ingredients  of  feeling,  thought,  and  volition  are 
therein  combined  in  numberless  ways.  Therefore 
the  symbol  z  may  be  considered  as  the  sum  of 
innumerable  constituent  parts,  grouped  inter  se  in 
numberless  systems  of  more  or  less  complexity. 

From  these  considerations  we  arrive  at  the 
following  conclusions.  The  theory  of  Monism 
teaches  that  all  z  is  x ;  but  it  does  not,  therefore, 
necessarily  teach  that  all  x  is  z.  Nevertheless,  it 
does  teach  that  if  all  x\s  not  2,  this  must  be  because 
x  is  z,  plus  something  more  than  z,  as  a  little 
thought  will  be  sufficient  to  show.  Thus,  the  four 
annexed  diagrams  exhaust  the  logical  possibilities 
of  any  case,  where  the  question  is  as  to  the  inclusion 
or  exclusion  of  one  quantity  by  another.  In  Fig.  i 


The  World  as  an  Eject,  91 


the  two  quantities  are  coincident ;  in  Fig  2  the  one 
is  wholly  included  by  the  other ;  in  Fig.  3  it  is 
partially  included  ;  and  in  Fig.  4  wholly  excluded. 
Now  in  the  present  case,  and  upon  the  data 
supplied,  the  logical  possibilities  are  exhausted  by 
Figs,  i  and  2.  For,  upon  these  data,  Figs.  3  and  4 
obviously  represent  logical  impossibilities ;  no  part 
of  Mind  can,  according  to  these  data,  stand  outside 


Fig.  2 


Fig.  3 


Fig.  4 


the  limits  of  Matter  and  Motion.  Therefore,  if  the 
Ego  is  not  coincident  with  the  Non-ego  (or  if  all  x 
is  not  #,  as  in  Fig.  i),  this  can  only  be  because  the 
Ego  is  less  extensive  than  the  Non-ego  (or  because 
x  is  z  phis  something  more  than  £,  as  in  Fig.  2). 

Of  these  two  logical  possibilities  Idealism,  in  its 
most  extreme  form,  may  adopt  the  first.  For 
Idealism  in  this  form  may  hold  that  apart  from  the 
Ego  there  is  no  external  world ;  that  outside  of  z 
there  is  no  x  ;  that  the  only  esse  is  the  percipi. 


92 


Monism. 


But,  as  very  few  persons  nowadays  are  prepared  to 
go  the  length  of  seriously  maintaining  that  in  actual 
fact  there  is  no  external  world  save  in  so  far  as  this 
is  perceived  by  the  individual  mind,  I  need  not 
wait  to  consider  this  possibility.  We  are  thus 


Fig.  7 


practically  shut  up  to  a  consideration  of  the  pos- 
sibility marked  2. 

The  theory  of  Monism,  then,  teaches  that  x  is  z 
plus  something  more  than  z ;  and  therefore  it 
becomes  a  matter  of  great  moment  to  consider  the 
probable  nature  of  the  overplus.  For  it  obviously 
does  not  follow  that  because  x  is  greater  than  z  in 
a  logical  sense,  therefore  x  must  be  greater  than  z 
in  a  psychological  sense.  Save  upon  the  theory  of 


The  World  as  an  Eject.  93 

Idealism  (with  which  Monism  is  not  specially 
concerned)  the  amount  (whatever  it  may  be)  wherein 
x  is  greater  than  z,  may  not  present  any  psy- 
chological signification  at  all.  We  may  find  that 
the  surface  of  our  globe  is  considerably  larger 
than  that  of  the  dry  land,  and  yet  it  may  not  follow 
that  the  mental-life  to  be  met  with  in  the  sea  is 
psychologically  superior  to  that  which  occurs  on  dry 
land.  If,  therefore,  we  represent  by  comparative 
shading  degrees  of  psychological  excellence,  it  is 
evident  that  the  theory  of  Monism  must  entertain 
the  three  possibilities  indicated  diagrammatically  in 
Figs.  5,  6,  and  7. .  It  makes  no  difference  what  the 
comparative  areas  of  x  and  z  may  be,  or  whether 
x  be  uniformly  shaded  throughout  its  extent.  All 
we  have  so  far  to  notice  is  that  the  fact  of  logical 
inclusion  does  not  necessarily  carry  with  it  the 
implication  of  psychological  superiority. 

Next  we  must  notice  that  besides  our  own  sub- 
jectivities, we  have  cognizance  of  being  surrounded 
by  many  other  inferred  subjectivities  more  or  less 
like  in  kind  (i.  e.  other  human  minds) ;  and  also  yet 
many  other  inferred  subjectivities  more  or  less  unlike, 
but  all  inferior  (i.e.  the  minds  of  lower  animals, 
young  children,  and  idiots).  Following  Clifford, 
I  will  call  these  inferred  subjectivities  by  the  name 
of  ejects,  and  assign  to  them  the  symbol  y.  Thus, 
in  the  following  discussion,  x  =  the  objective  world, 
y  =  the  ejective  world,  and  z  =  subjective  world. 
Now,  the  theory  of  Monism  supposes  that  x,  y,  and 
z  are  all  alike  in  kind,  but  present  no  definite 


94  Monism. 

teaching  as  to  how  far  they  may  differ  in  degree. 
"We  may,  however,  at  once  allow  that  between  the 
psychological  value  of  z  and  that  of  y  there  is  a 
wide  difference  of  degree ;  and  also  that,  while  the 
value  of  z  is  a  fixed  quantity,  that  of  y  varies  greatly 
in  the  different  parts  of  the  area  y.  Our  scheme, 
therefore,  will  now  adopt  this  form — 


But  the  important  question  remains  how  we 
ought  to  shade  x.  According  to  Clifford,  this 
ought  scarcely  to  be  shaded  at  all,  while  according 
to  theologians  (and  theists  generally)  it  ought  to  be 


The  World  as  an  Eject.  95 

shaded  so  much  more  deeply  than  either  y  or  z, 
that  the  joint  representation  in  one  diagram  would 
only  be  possible  by  choosing  for  the  shading  of  x 
a  colour  different  from  that  employed  for  y  and  z, 
and  assigning  to  that  colour  a  representative  value 
higher  than  that  assigned  to  the  other  in  the  ratio 
of  one  to  infinity.  It  will  be  my  object  to  estimate 
the  relative  probability  of  these  rival  estimates  of 
the  psychological  value  of  x. 

Starting  from  z  as  our  centre,  we  know  that  this 
is  an  isolated  system  of  subjectivity,  and  hence  we 
infer  that  all  y  is  composed  of  analogous  systems, 
resembling  one  another  as  to  their  isolation,  and 
differing  only  in  their  degrees  of  psychological 
value.  Now  this,  translated  into  terms  of  x  (or 
into  terms  of  objectivity),  means  that  z  is  an 
isolated  system  of  matter  in  motion,  and  that  the 
same  has  to  be  said  of  all  the  constituent  parts  of 
y.  In  other  words,  both  subjectivity  and  ejectivity 
are  only  known  under  the  condition  of  being 
isolated  from  objectivity ;  which,  obversely  con- 
sidered, means  that  the  matter  in  motion  here 
concerned  is  temporarily  separated  off  from  the 
rest  of  the  objective  world,  in  such  wise  that  it 
forms  a  distinct  system  of  its  own.  If  any  part  of 
the  objective  world  rudely  forces  its  way  within 
the  machinery  of  that  system,  it  is  at  the  risk  of 
disarranging  the  machinery  and  stopping  its  work — 
as  is  the  case  when  a  bullet  enters  the  brain.  Such 
converse  as  the  brain  normally  holds  with  the 
external  world,  is  held  through  the  appointed 


g6  Monism. 

channels  of  the  senses,  whereby  appropriate  causa- 
tion is  supplied  to  keep  the  otherwise  isolated 
system  at  work.  We  know,  from  physiological 
evidence,  that  when  such  external  causation  is 
withheld,  the  isolated  system  ceases  to  work  ;  there- 
fore, the  isolation,  although  complete  under  one 
point  of  view,  under  another  point  of  view  is 
incomplete.  It  is  complete  only  in  the  sense  in 
which  the  isolation  of  a  machine  is  complete — i.  e. 
it  is  in  itself  a  working  system,  yet  its  working  is 
ultimately  dependent  upon  causation  supplied  from 
without  in  certain  appropriate  ways.  This  truth  is 
likewise  testified  to  on  the  obverse  aspect  of 
psychology.  For  analysis  shows  that  all  our 
mental  processes  (however  complex  they  may  be 
internally)  are  ultimately  dependent  on  impressions 
of  the  external  world  gained  through  the  senses. 
Whether  regarded  objectively  or  subjectively, 
therefore,  we  find  that  it  is  the  business  of  the 
isolated  system  to  elaborate,  by  its  internal  pro- 
cesses, the  raw  materials  which  are  supplied  to  it 
from  without.  Seeing,  then,  that  the  isolation  of  the 
system  is  thus  only  partial,  we  may  best  apply 
to  it  the  term  circumscribed.  Such  partial  isolation 
or  circumscription  of  matter  in  motion — so  that 
it  shall  in  itself  constitute  a  little  working  micro- 
cosm— appears  to  be  the  first  condition  to  the 
being  of  a  subjective  personality.  Why,  then,  does 
not  the  working  of  a  machine  present  a  subjective 
side? 

Our  answer  to  this  question  is  to  be  found  in  the 


The  World  as  an  Eject.  97 

following  considerations.  We  are  going  upon  the 
hypothesis  that  all  mind  is  matter  in  motion,  and 
that  all  matter  in  motion  is  mind — or,  as  Clifford 
phrased  it,  that  all  the  external  world  is  composed 
of  mind-stuff.  No  matter  how  lightly  we  may 
shade  x,  we  are  assuming  that  it  must  be  shaded, 
and  not  left  perfectly  white.  Now,  both  mind  and 
matter  in  motion  admit  of  degrees :  -  first  as  to 
quantity,  next  as  to  velocity,  and  lastly  as  to  com- 
plexity. But  the  degrees  of  matter  in  motion  are 
found,  in  point  of  observable  fact,  not  to  correspond 
with  those  of  mind,  save  in  the  last  particular  of 
complexity,  where  there  is  unquestionably  an 
evident  correspondence.  Therefore  it  is  that  a 
machine,  although  conforming  to  the  prime  con- 
dition of  subjectivity  in  being  a  .  circumscribed 
system  of  matter  in  motion,  nevertheless  does  not 
attain  to  subjectivity :  the  x  does  not  rise  to  z  be- 
cause the  internal  processes  of  x  are  not  sufficiently 
intricate,  or  their  intricacy  is  not  of  the  appropriate 
kind.  From  which  it  follows  that  although,  as 
I  have  said,  all  matter  in  motion  is  mind,  merely  as 
matter  in  motion  (or  irrespective  of  the  kinds  and 
degrees  of  both)  it  may  not  necessarily  be  mind  in 
the  elaborated  form  of  consciousness  :  it  may  only 
be  the  raw  material  of  mind — or,  as  Clifford  called 
it,  mind-stuff.  Thus,  although  all  conscious  volition 
is  matter  in  motion,  it  does  not  follow  that  all 
matter  in  motion  is  conscious  volition.  Which 
serves  to  restate  the  question  as  to  how  far  it  is 
probable,  or  improbable,  that  all  matter  in  motion 

H 


98  Monism. 

is  conscious  volition — i.e.  how  deeply  we  ought  to 
shade  x. 

Well,  the  first  thing  to  be  considered  in  answer- 
ing this  question  is  that,  according  to  the  theory  of 
Monism,  we  know  that  it  is  within  the  range  of 
possibility  for  matter  in  motion  to  reach  a  level  of 
intricacy  which  shall  yield  conscious  volition,  and 
even  self-conscious  thought  of  an  extremely  high 
order  of  development.  Therefore,  the  only  question 
is  as  to  whether  it  is  possible,  or  in  any  way  probable, 
that  matter  in  motion  as  occurring  \\\.x  resembles,  in 
point  of  intricacy,  matter  in  motion  as  occurring  in  z. 
Professor  Clifford  perceived  that  this  is  the  core  of 
the  question,  and  staked  the  whole  answer  to  it 
on  an  extremely  simple  issue.  He  said  that  unless 
we  can  show  in  the  disposition  of  heavenly  bodies 
some  morphological  resemblance  to  the  structure 
of  a  human  brain,  we  are  precluded  from  rationally 
entertaining  any  probability  that  self-conscious 
volition  belongs  to  the  universe.  Obviously,  this 
way  of  presenting  the  case  is  so  grossly  illogical 
that  even  the  exigencies  of  popular  exposition  can- 
not be  held  to  justify  the  presentation.  For  aught 
that  we  can  know  to  the  contrary,  not  merely  the 
highly  specialized  structure  of  the  human  brain,  but 
even  that  of  nervous  matter  in  general,  may  only 
be  one  of  a  thousand  possible  ways  in  which  the 
material  and  dynamical  conditions  required  for  the 
apparition  of  self-consciousness  can  be  secured.  To 
imagine  that  the  human  brain  of  necessity  exhausts 
these  possibilities  is  in  the  last  degree  absurd. 


The  World  as  an  Eject.  99 

Therefore,  we  may  suggest  the  following  presenta- 
tion of  Clifford's  case  as  one  that  is  less  obviously 
inadequate: — if  any  resemblance  to  the  material 
and  dynamical  conditions  of  the  microcosm  can  be 
detected  in  the  macrocosm,  we  should  have  good 
reason  to  ascribe  to  the  latter  those  attributes  of 
subjectivity  which  we  know  as  belonging  to  the 
former ;  but  if  no  such  resemblance  can  be  traced, 
we  shall  have  some  reason  to  suppose  that  these 
attributes  do  not  belong  to  the  universe.  Even  this, 
however,  I  should  regard  as  much  too  wide  a  state- 
ment of  the  case.  To  take  the  particular  conditions 
under  which  alone  subjectivity  is  known  to  occur 
upon  a  single  planet  as  exhausting  the  possibilities 
of  its  occurrence  elsewhere,  is  too  flagrant  a  use  of 
the  method  of  simple  enumeration  to  admit  of  a 
moment's  countenance.  Even  the  knowledge  that 
we  have  of  the  two  great  conditions  under  which 
terrestrial  subjectivities  occur — circumscription  and 
complexity — is  only  empirical.  It  may  well  be 
that  elsewhere  (or  apart  from  the  conditions  imposed 
by  nervous  tissue)  subjectivity  is  possible  irrespective 
both  of  circumscription  and  of  complexity.  There- 
fore, properly  or  logically  regarded,  the  great  use 
of  the  one  exhibition  of  subjectivity  furnished  to 
human  experience,  is  the  proof  thus  furnished  that 
subjectivity  is  possible  under  some  conditions  ;  and 
the  utmost  which  on  the  grounds  of  such  proof 
human  experience  is  entitled  to  argue  is,  that 
probably,  if  subjectivity  is  possible  elsewhere,  its 
possibility  is  given  by  those  conditions  of  circum- 
H  a 


IOO 


Monism. 


scription  and  complexity  in  the  material  and 
dynamical  relations  concerned,  which  we  find  to  be 
the  invariable  and  quantitative  concomitants  of 
subjectivity  within  experience.  But  this  is  a  widely 
different  thing  from  saying  that  the  only  kind  of 
such  circumscription  and  complexity — or  the  only 
disposition  of  these  relations — which  can  present  a 
subjective  side  is  that  which  is  found  in  the 
structures  and  functions  of  a  nervous  system. 

Now,  if  we  fix  our  attention  merely  on  this 
matter  of  complexity,  and  refuse  to  be  led  astray 
by  obviously  false  analogies  of  a  more  special  kind, 
I  think  there  can  be  no  question  that  the  macrocosm 
does  furnish  amply  sufficient  opportunity,  as  it 
were,  for  the  presence  of  subjectivity,  even  if  it  be 
assumed  that  subjectivity  can  only  be  yielded  by  an 
order  of  complexity  analogous  to  that  of  a  nervous 
system.  For,  considering  the  material  and  dynamical 
system  of  the  universe  as  a  whole,  it  is  obvious  that 
the  complexity  presented  is  greater  than  that  of 
any  of  its  parts.  Not  only  is  it  true  that  all  these 
parts  are  included  in  the  whole,  and  that  even  the 
visible  sidereal  system  alone  presents  movements  of 
enormous  intricacy  *,  but  we  find,  for  instance,  that 
even  within  the  limits  of  this  small  planet  there  is 

1  If  we  imagine  the  visible  sidereal  system  compressed  within  the 
limits  of  a  human  skull,  so  that  all  its  movements  which  we  now 
recognize  as  molar  should  become  molecular,  the  complexity  of  such 
movement  would  probably  be  as  great  as  that  which  takes  place  in 
a  human  brain.  Yet  to  this  must  be  added  all  the  molecular  move- 
ments which  are  now  going  on  in  the  sidereal  system,  visible  and 
invisible. 


The  World  as  an  Eject.          101 

presented  to  actual  observation  a  peculiar  form  of 
circumscribed  complex,  fully  comparable  with  that 
of  the  individual  brain,  and  yet  external  to  each 
individual  brain.  For  the  so-called  '  social  organ- 
ism.' although  composed  of  innumerable  individual 
personalities,  is,  with  regard  to  each  of  its  constituent 
units,  a  part  of  the  objective  world — just  as  the 
human  brain  would  be,  were  each  of  its  constituent 
cells  of  a  construction  sufficiently  complex  to  yield 
a  separate  personality. 

If  to  this  it  be  objected  that,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
the  social  organism  does  not  possess  a  self-conscious 
personality,  I  will  give  a  twofold  answer.  In  the 
first  place,  Who  told  the  objector  that  it  has  not  ? 
For  aught  that  any  one  of  its  constituent  person- 
alities can  prove  to  the  contrary,  this  social 
organism  may  possess  self-conscious  personality  of 
the  most  vivid  character :  its  constituent  human 
minds  may  be  born  into  it  and  die  out  of  it  as  do 
the  constituent  cells  of  the  human  body :  it  may 
feel  the  throes  of  war  and  famine,  rejoice  in  the 
comforts  of  peace  and  plenty :  it  may  appreciate 
the  growth  of  civilization  as  its  passage  from  child- 
hood to  maturity.  If  this  at  first  sight  appears 
a  grotesque  supposition,  we  must  remember  that  it 
would  appear  equally  so  to  ascribe  such  possibilities 
to  the  individual  brain,  were  it  not  for  the  irrele- 
vant accident  of  this  particular  form  of  complex 
standing  in  such  relation  to  our  own  subjectivity 
that  we  are  able  to  verify  the  fact  of  its  ejectivity. 
Thus,  for  aught  that  we  can  tell  to  the  contrary, 


IO2 


Monism. 


Comte  may  have  been  even  more  justified  than  his 
followers  suppose,  in  teaching  the  personification  of 
Humanity. 

But,  in  the  next  place,  if  the  social  organism  is 
not  endowed  with  personality,  this  may  be  for 
either  one  of  two  reasons.  All  the  conditions 
required  for  attaining  so  high  a  level  of  psychical 
perfection  may  not  be  here  present ;  or  else  the 
level  of  psychical  perfection  may  be  higher  than 
that  which  we  know  as  personality.  This  latter 
alternative  will  be  considered  in  another  relation 
by-and-by,  so  I  will  not  dwell  upon  it  now.  But 
with  reference  to  all  these  possible  contingencies, 
I  may  observe  that  we  are  not  without  clear  indica- 
tions of  the  great  fact  that  the  high  order  of 
complexity  which  has  been  reached  by  the  social 
organism  is  accompanied  by  evidence  of  something 
which  we  may  least  dimly  define  as  resembling  sub- 
jectivity. In  numberless  ways,  which  I  need  not  wait 
to  enumerate,  we  perceive  that  society  exhibits  the 
phenomena  both  of  thought  and  conduct.  And  these 
phenomena  cannot  always  be  explained  by  regard- 
ing them  as  the  sum  of  the  thoughts  and  actions 
of  its  constituent  individuals— or,  at  least,  they  can 
only  be  so  regarded  by  conceding  that  the  thoughts 
and  actions  of  the  constituent  individuals,  when 
thus  summatedy  yield  a  different  product  from  that 
which  would  be  obtained  by  a  merely  arithmetical 
computation  of  the  constituent  parts:  the  composite 
product  differs  from  its  component  elements,  as 
H2O  differs  from  aH  +  O.  The  general  truth  of 


The  World  as  an  Eject.          103 

this  remark  will,  I  believe,  be  appreciated  by  all 
historians.  Seeing  that  ideas  are  often,  as  it  is  said, 
'in  the  air'  before  they  are  condensed  in  the  mind 
of  individual  genius,  we  habitually  speak  of  the 
'  Zeit-geist '  as  the  product  of  a  kind  of  collective 
psychology,  which  is  something  other  than  the  mere 
sum  of  all  the  individual  minds  of  a  generation.  That 
is  to  say,  we  regard  society  as  an  eject,  and  the 
more  that  a  man  studies  the  thought  and  conduct  of 
society,  the  more  does  he  become  convinced  that 
we  are  right  in  so  regarding  it.  Of  course  this 
eject  is  manifestly  unlike  that  which  we  form  of 
another  individual  mind  :  it  is  much  more  general, 
vague,  and  so  far  unlike  the  pattern  of  our  own 
subjectivity  that  even  to  ascribe  to  it  the  important 
attribute  of  personality  is  felt,  as  we  have  just  seen, 
to  approach  the  grotesque.  Still,  in  this  vague  and 
general  way  we  do  ascribe  to  society  ejective 
existence:  we  habitually  think  of  the  whole  world 
of  human  thought  and  feeling  as  a  psychological 
complex,  which  is  other  than,  and  more  than,  a 
mere  shorthand  enumeration  of  all  the  thoughts  and 
feelings  of  all  individual  human  beings. 

The  ejective  existence  thus  ascribed  to  society 
serves  as  a  stepping-stone  to  the  yet  more  vague 
and  general  ascription  of  such  existence  to  the 
Cosmos.  At  first,  indeed,  or  during  the  earliest 
stages  of  culture,  the  ascription  of  ejective  existence 
to  the  external  world  is  neither  vague  nor  general  : 
on  the  contrary,  it  is  most  distinct  and  specific. 
Beginning  in  the  rudest  forms  of  animism,  where 


104  Monism. 

every  natural  process  admits  of  being  immediately 
attributed  to  the  volitional  agency  of  an  unseen 
spirit,  anthropomorphism  sets  out  upon  its  long 
course  of  development,  which  proceeds  part  passu 
with  the  development  of  abstract  thought.  Man, 
as  it  has  been  truly  said,  universally  makes  God  in 
his  own  image  ;  and  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  the 
case  could  be  otherwise.  Universally  the  eject 
must  assume  the  pattern  of  the  subject,  and  it  is 
only  in  the  proportion  that  this  pattern  presents 
the  features  of  abstract  thinking  that  the  image 
which  it  throws  becomes  less  and  less  man-like. 
Hence,  as  Mr.  Fiske  has  shown  in  detail,  so  soon 
as  anthropomorphism  has  assumed  its  highest  state 
of  development,  it  begins  to  be  replaced  by  a  con- 
tinuous growth  of  '  deanthropomorphism,'  which, 
passing  through  polytheism  into  monotheism,  even- 
tually ends  in  a  progressive  '  purification  '  of  theism 
—by  which  is  meant  a  progressive  metamorphosis 
of  the  theistic  conception,  tending  to  remove  from 
Deity  the  attributes  of  Humanity.  The  last  of 
these  attributes  to  disappear  is  that  of  personality} 
and  when  this  final  ecdysis  has  been  performed, 
the  eject  which  remains  is  so  unlike  its  original 
subject,  that,  as  we  shall  immediately  find,  it  is 
extremely  difficult  to  trace  any  points  of  re- 
semblance between  them. 

Now  it  is  with  this  perfect,  or  imago  condition  of 
the  world-eject,  that  we  have  to  do.  Mr.  Herbert 
Spencer,  in  what  I  consider  the  profoundest  reaches 
of  his  philosophic  thought,  has  well  shown,  on  the 


The  World  as  an  Eject.          105 

one  hand,  how  impossible  it  is  to  attribute  to  Deity 
any  of  the  specific  attributes  of  mind  as  known  to 
ourselves  subjectively;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  how 
it  is  possible  to  conceive  '  symbolically '  that  the 
universe  may  be  instinct  with  a  '  quasi-psychical ' 
principle,  as  greatly  transcending  personality 
as  personality  transcends  mechanical  motion1. 
Accepting,  then,  the  world-eject  in  this  its  highest 
conceivable  stage  of  evolution,  I  desire  to  con- 
template it  under  the  light  of  the  monistic  theory. 
We  have  seen  that,  whether  we  look  upon  the 
subjective  or  objective  face  of  personality,  we  find 
that  personality  arises  from  limitation — or,  as  I 
have  previously  termed  it,  circumscription.  Now, 
we  have  no  evidence,  nor  are  we  able  to  conceive, 
of  the  external  world  as  limited ;  consequently  we 
are  not  able  to  conceive,  of  the  world-eject  as 
personal.  But,  inasmuch  as  personality  arises  only 
from  limitation,  the  conclusion  that  the  world- 
eject  is  impersonal  does  not  tend  to  show  that  it 
is  of  lower  psychical  value  than  conscious  per- 
sonality :  on  the  contrary,  it  tends  to  show  that  it 
is  probably  of  higher  psychical  value.  True,  we 
are  not  able  to  conceive  actually  of  mind  as 
impersonal  ;  but  we  can  see  that  this  merely  arises 
from  our  only  experience  of  mind  being  given 
under  conditions  of  personality ;  and,  as  just  ob- 
served, it  is  possible  to  conceive  symbolically 
that  there  may  be  a  form  of  mind  as  greatly 

1  Principles  of  Psychology,  vol.   i.  pp.   159-61  ;  Essays,  vol.  iii. 
pp.  246-9 ;  and  First  Principles,  p.  26. 


io6  Monism. 

transcending  personality  as  personality  transcends 
mechanical  motion. 

Now,  although  we  cannot  conceive  of  such  a 
mind  actually,  we  may  most  probably  make  the 
nearest  approach  to  conceiving  of  it  truly,  by 
provisionally  ascribing  to  it  the  highest  attributes 
of  mind  as  known  to  ourselves,  or  the  attributes 
which  belong  to  human  personality.  Just  as  a 
thinking  insect  would  derive  a  better,  or  more  true, 
conception  of  human  personality  by  considering  it 
ejectively  than  by  considering  it  objectively  (or  by 
considering  the  mind-processes  as  distinguished 
from  the  brain-processes),  so,  if  there  is  a  form  of 
mind  immeasurably  superior  to  our  own,  we  may 
probably  gain  a  more  faithful — howsoever  still 
inadequate — conception  of  it  by  contemplating  its 
operations  ejectively  than  by  doing  so  objectively. 
I  will,  therefore,  speak  of  the  world-eject  as  pre- 
senting conscious  volition,  on  the  understanding 
that  if  x  does  not  present  either  consciousness  or 
volition,  this  must  be — according  to  the  funda- 
mental assumption  of  psychism  on  which  we  are  now 
proceeding — because  x  presents  attributes  at  least 
as  much  higher  than  consciousness  or  volition  as 
these  are  higher  than  mechanical  motion.  For 
when  we  consider  the  utmost  that  our  conscious 
volition  is  able  to  accomplish  in  the  way  of 
contrivance — how  limited  its  knowledge,  how  short 
its  duration,  how  restricted  its  range,  and  how 
imperfect  its  adaptations — we  can  only  conclude 
that  if  the  ultimate  constitution  of  all  things  is 


The  World  as  an  Eject.          107 

pyschical,  the  philosophy  of  the  Cosmos  becomes  a 
'  philosophy  of  the  Unconscious '  only  because  it  is 
a  philosophy  of  the  Superconscious. 

Now,  if  once  we  feel  ourselves  able  to  transcend 
the  preliminary — and  doubtless  very  considerable — 
difficulty  of  symbolically  conceiving  the  world-eject 
as  super- conscious,  and  (because  not  limited)  also 
super-personal,  I  think  there  can  be  no  question 
that  the  world-object  furnishes  overwhelming  proof 
of  psychism.  I  candidly  confess  that  I  am  not 
myself  able  to  overcome  the  preliminary  difficulty 
in  question.  By  discharging  the  elements  of  per- 
sonality and  conscious  volition  from  the  world-eject, 
I  appear  to  be  discharging  from  my  conception 
of  mind  all  that  most  distinctively  belongs  to 
that  conception  ;  and  thus  I  seem  to  be  brought 
back  again  to  the  point  from  which  we  started : 
the  world-eject  appears  to  have  again  resolved 
itself  into  the  unknown  quantity  x.  But  here  we 
must  distinguish  between  actual  conception  and 
symbolical  conception.  Although  it  is  unquestion- 
ably true  that  I  can  form  no  actual  conception 
of  Mind  save  as  an  eject  of  personality  and 
conscious  volition,  it  is  a  question  whether  I  am 
not  able  to  form  a  symbolical  conception  of  Mind 
as  thus  extended.  For  I  know  that  consciousness, 
implying  as  it  does  continual  change  in  serial  order 
of  circumscribed  mental  processes,  is  not  (symboli- 
cally considered)  the  highest  conceivable  exhibition 
of  Mind  ;  and  just  as  a  mathematician  is  able  to  deal 
symbolically  with  space  of  n  dimensions,  while  only 


io8  Monism. 

able  really  to  conceive  of  space  as  limited  to  three 
dimensions,  so  I  feel  that  I  ought  not  to  limit  the 
abstract  possibilities  of  mental  being  by  what  I  may 
term  the  accidental  conditions  of  my  own  being. 

I  need  scarcely  wait  to  show  why  it  appears  to 
me  that  if  this  position  is  granted,  the  world-object 
furnishes,  as  I  have  said,  overwhelming  proof  of 
psychism  ;  for  this  proof  has  been  ably  presented 
by  many  other  writers.  There  is  first  the 
antecedent  improbability  that  the  human  mind 
should  be  the  highest  manifestation  of  subjectivity 
in  this  universe  of  infinite  objectivity.  There  is 
next  the  fact  that  throughout  this  universe  of 
infinite  objectivity— so  far,  at  least,  as  human 
observation  can  extend — there  is  unquestionable 
evidence  of  some  one  integrating  principle,  whereby 
all  its  many  and  complex  parts  are  correlated  with 
one  another  in  such  wise  that  the  result  is 'universal 
order.  And  if  we  take  any  part  of  the  whole 
system — such  as  that  of  organic  nature  on  this 
planet — to  examine  in  more  detail,  we  find  that  it 
appears  to  be  instinct  with  contrivance.  So  to 
speak,  wherever  we  tap  organic  nature,  it  seems  to 
flow  with  purpose  ;  and,  as  we  shall  presently  see, 
upon  the  monistic  theory  the  evidence  of  purpose  is 
here  in  no  way  attenuated  by  a  full  acceptance  of 
any  of  the  '  mechanical '  explanations  furnished 
by  science.  Now,  these  large  and  important  facts 
of  observation  unquestionably  point,  as  just 
observed,  to  some  one  integrating  principle  as 
pervading  the  Cosmos  ;  and,  if  so,  we  can  scarcely 


The  World  as  an  Eject.          109 

be  wrong  in  supposing  that  among  all  our 
conceptions  it  must  hold  nearest  kinship  to  that 
which  is  our  highest  conception  of  an  integrating 
cause — viz.,  the  conception  of  psychism.  Assuredly 
no  human  mind  could  either  have  devised  or 
maintained  the  working  of  even  a  fragment  of 
Nature ;  and,  therefore,  it  seems  but  reasonable  to 
conclude  that  the  integrating  principle  of  the 
whole — the  Spirit,  as  it  were,  of  the  Universe — 
must  be  something  which,  while  as  I  have  said 
holding  nearest  kinship  with  our  highest  conception 
of  disposing  power,  must  yet  be  immeasurably 
superior  to  the  psychism  of  man.  The  world-eject 
thus  becomes  invested  with  a  psychical  value  as 
greatly  transcending  in  magnitude  that  of  the 
human  mind,  as  the  material  frame  of  the  universe 
transcends  in  its  magnitude  the  material  frame 
of  the  human  body.  Therefore,  without  in  any 
way  straining  the  theory  of  Monism,  we  may  provi- 
sionally shade  x  more  deeply  than  z,  and  this  in 
some  immeasurable  degree. 

One  other  matter  remains  to  be  considered  with 
reference  to  this  world-eject  as  sanctioned  by 
Monism.  It  leaves  us  free  to  regard  all  natural 
causation  as  a  direct  exhibition  of  psychism.  The 
prejudice  against  anything  approaching  a  theistic 
interpretation  of  the  Universe  nowadays  arises 
chiefly  from  the  advance  of  physical  science  having 
practically  revealed  the  ubiquity  of  natural  causes. 
It  is  felt  that  when  a  complete  explanation  of  any 


no 


Monism. 


given  phenomenon  has  been  furnished  in  terms  of 
these  causes,  there  is  no  need  to  go  further  ;  the 
phenomenon  has  been  rendered  intelligible  on  its 
mechanical  side,  and  therefore  it  is  felt  that  we 
have  no  reason  to  suppose  that  it  presents  a  mental 
side — any  supplementary  causation  of  a  mental 
kind  being  regarded  as  superfluous.  Even  writers 
who  expressly  repudiate  this  reasoning  prove  them- 
selves to  be  habitually  under  its  influence;  for  we 
constantly  find  that  such  writers,  after  conceding 
the  mechanical  explanations  as  far  as  these  have 
been  proved,  take  their  stand  upon  the  more 
intricate  phenomena  of  Nature  where,  as  yet,  the 
mechanical  explanations  are  not  forthcoming. 
Whether  it  be  at  the  origin  of  life,  the  origin  of 
sentiency,  of  instinct,  of  rationality,  of  morality,  or 
of  religion,  these  writers  habitually  argue  that  here, 
at  least,  the  purely  mechanical  interpretations  fail  ; 
and  that  here,  consequently,  there  is  still  room  left 
for  a  psychical  interpretation.  Of  course  the 
pleading  for  theism  thus  supplied  is  seen  by  others 
to  be  of  an  extremely  feeble  quality ;  for  while,  on 
the  one  hand,  it  rests  only  upon  ignorance  of 
natural  causation  (as  distinguished  from  any  know- 
ledge of  supernatural  causation),  on  the  other  hand, 
abundant  historical  analogies  are  available  to  show 
that  it  is  only  a  question  of  time  when  pleading  of 
this  kind  will  become  more  and  more  restricted  in 
its  subject-matter,  till  eventually  it  be  altogether 
silenced.  But  the  pleading  which  Monism  is  here 
able  to  supply  can  never  be  silenced. 


The  World  as  an  Eject.          m 

For,  according  to  Monism,  all  matter  in  motion 
is  mind  ;  and,  therefore,  matter  in  motion  is  merely 
the  objective  revelation,  to  us  and  for  us,  of  that 
which  in  its  subjective  aspect — or  in  its  ultimate 
reality — is  mind.  Just  as  the  operations  of  my 
friend's  mind  can  only  be  revealed  to  me  through 
the  mechanical  operations  of  his  body,  so  it  may 
very  well  be  that  the  operations  of  the  Supreme 
Mind  (supposing  such  to  exist)  can  only  be  revealed 
to  me  through  the  mechanical  operations  of 
Nature.  The  only  difference  between  the  two  cases 
is  that  while  I  am  able,  in  the  case  of  my  friend's 
mind,  to  elicit  responses  of  mechanical  movement 
having  a  definite  and  intended  relation  to  the 
operations  of  my  own  mind,  similarly  expressed  to 
him  ;  such  is  not  the  case  with  Nature.  With  the 
friend-eject  I  am  able  to  converse  ;  but  not  so  with 
the  world-eject 1.  This  great  difference,  however, 

1  It  is,  however,  the  belief  of  all  religious  persons  that  even  this 
distinction  does  not  hold.  If  they  are  right  in  their  belief,  the 
distinction  would  then  become  one  as  to  the  mode  of  converse.  In 
this  case  what  is  called  communion  with  the  Supreme  Mind  must  be 
supposed  to  be  a  communion  sui generis  •.  the  converse  of  mind  with 
mind  is  here  direct,  or  does  not  require  to  be  translated  into  the 
language  of  mechanical  signs :  it  is  subjective,  not  cjective.  Still, 
even  here  we  must  believe  that  the  physical  aspect  accompanies  the 
psychical,  although  not  necessarily  observed.  An  act  of  prayer,  for 
example,  is,  on  its  physical  aspect,  an  act  of  cerebration  :  so  is  the 
answer  (supposing  it  genuine),  in  as  far  as  the  worshipper  is  con- 
cerned. Thus  prayer  and  its  answer  (according  to  Monism)  resemble 
all  the  other  processes  of  Nature  in  presenting  an  objective  side  of 
strictly  physical  causation.  Nor  is  it  possible  that  the  case  could  be 
otherwise,  if  all  mental  processes  consist  in  physical  process,  and 
vice  versa.  It  is  obvious  that  this  consideration  has  important 


112 


Monism. 


although  obviously  depriving  me  of  any  such 
direct  corroboration  of  psychism  in  the  world-eject 
as  that  which  I  thus  derive  of  psychism  in  the 
friend-eject,  ought  not  to  be  regarded  by  me  as 
amounting,  in  the  smallest  degree,  to  disproof  of 
psychism  in  the  world-eject.  The  fact  that  I  am 
not  able  to  converse  with  the  world-eject  is  merely 
a  negative  fact,  and  should  not  be  allowed  to  tell 
against  any  probability  (otherwise  derived)  in 
favour  of  psychism  as  belonging  to  that  eject. 
There  may  be  a  thousand  very  good  reasons  why  I 
should  be  precluded  from  such  converse — some  of 
which,  indeed,  I  can  myself  very  clearly  perceive. 

The   importance   of  Monism    in   thus    enabling 
us    rationally    to    contemplate    all     processes    of 

bearings  on  the  question  as  to  the  physical  efficacy  of  prayer. 
From  a  monistic  point  of  view  both  those  who  affirm  and  those  who 
deny  such  efficacy  are  equally  in  the  right,  and  equally  in  the  wrong  ; 
they  are  merely  quarrelling  upon  different  sides  of  the  same  shield. 
For,  according  to  Monism,  if  the  theologians  are  right  in  supposing 
that  the  Supreme  Mind  is  the  hearer  of  prayer  in  any  case,  they  are 
also  right  in  supposing  that  the  Mind  must  necessarily  be  able  to 
grant  what  is  called  physical  answers,  seeing  that  in  order  to  grant 
any  answer  (even  of  the  most  apparently  spiritual  kind)  some 
physical  change  must  be  produced,  if  it  be  only  in  the  brain  of  the 
petitioner.  On  the  other  hand,  the  scientists  are  equally  right  in 
maintaining  that  no  physical  answer  to  prayer  can  be  of  the  nature 
of  a  miracle,  or  produced  independently  of  strictly  physical  causation ; 
for,  if  so,  the  physical  and  the  psychical  would  no  longer  be  coin- 
cident. But,  until  the  scientists  are  able  to  perform  the  hopeless 
task  of  proving  where  the  possibilities  of  physical  causation  end,  as 
a  mere  matter  of  abstract  speculation  and  going  upon  the  theory  of 
Monism,  it  is  evident  that  the  theologians  may  have  any  latitude 
they  choose  to  claim,  both  as  regards  this  matter  and  that  of  so- 
called  miracles. 


The  World  as  an  Eject.          113 

physical  causation  as  possibly  immediate  exhibi- 
tions of  psychism,  is  difficult  to  overrate.  For  it 
entirely  discharges  all  distinction  between  the 
mechanical  and  the  mental ;  so  that  if  physical 
science  were  sufficiently  advanced  to  yield  a  full 
natural  explanation  of  all  the  phenomena  within 
human  experience,  mankind  would  be  in  a  position 
to  gain  as  complete  a  knowledge  as  is  theoretically 
possible  of  the  psychological  character  of  the 
world-eject.  Already  we  are  able  to  perceive  the 
immense  significance  of  being  able  to  regard  any 
sequence  of  natural  causation  as  the  merely 
phenomenal  aspect  of  the  ontological  reality — the 
merely  outward  manifestation  of  an  inward 
meaning.  Thus,  for  example,  I  am  listening  to 
a  sonata  of  Beethoven's  played  by  Madame 
Schumann.  Helmholtz  tells  me  all  that  he  knows 
about  the  physics  and  physiology  of  the  process, 
both  beyond  and  within  my  brain.  But  I  feel 
that,  even  if  Helmholtz  were  able  to  tell  me  very 
much  more  than  he  can,  so  long  as  he  is  dealing 
with  these  objective  explanations,  he  is  at  work 
only  upon  the  outer  skin  of  the  whole  matter. 
The  great  reality  is  the  mind  of  Beethoven  com- 
municating to  my  mind  through  the  complex 
intervention  of  three  different  brains  with  their 
neuro-muscular  systems,  and  an  endless  variety  of 
aerial  vibrations  proceeding  from  a  pianoforte. 
The  method  of  communication  has  nothing  more 
to  do  with  the  reality  communicated  than  have  the 
paper  and  ink  of  this  essay  to  do  with  the  ideas 

I 


Monism. 

which  they  serve  to  convey.  In  each  case  a  vehicle 
of  symbols  is  necessary  in  order  that  one  mind 
should  communicate  with  another ;  but  in  both 
cases  this  is  a  vehicle  of  symbols,  and  nothing  more. 
Everywhere,  therefore,  the  reality  may  be  psychical, 
and  the  physical  symbolic  ;  everywhere  matter  in 
motion  may  be  the  outward  and  visible  sign  of  an 
inward  and  spiritual  grace. 

Take  again  the  case  of  morality  and  religion. 
Because  science,  by  its  theory  of  evolution,  appears 
to  be  in  a  fair  way  of  explaining  the  genesis  of 
these  things  by  natural  causes,  theists  are  taking 
alarm  ;  it  is  felt  by  them  that  if  morality  can  be 
fully  explained  by  utility,  and  religion  by  super- 
stition, the  reality  of  both  is  destroyed.  But 
Monism  teaches  that  such  a  view  is  entirely 
erroneous.  For,  according  to  Monism,  the  natural 
causation  of  morality  and  religion  has  nothing 
whatever  to  do  with  the  ultimate  truth  of  either. 
The  natural  causation  is  merely  a  record  of  physical 
processes,  serving  to  manifest  the  psychical  processes. 
Nor  can  it  make  any  difference,  as  regards  the 
ultimate  veracity  of  the  moral  and  religious  feelings, 
that  they  have  been  developed  slowly  by  natural 
causes  ;  that  they  were  at  first  grossly  selfish  on 
the  one  hand,  and  hideously  superstitious  on  the 
other  ;  that  they  afterwards  went  through  a  long 
series  of  changes,  none  of  which  therefore  can  have 
fully  corresponded  with  external  truth ;  or  that 
even  now  they  may  be  both  extremely  far  from  any 
such  correspondence.  All  that  such  considerations 


The  World  as  an  Eject.          115 

go  to  prove  is,  that  it  belongs  to  the  natural 
method  of  mental  evolution  in  man  that  with 
advancing  culture  his  ejective  interpretations  of 
Nature  should  more  and  more  nearly  approximate 
the  truth.  The  world-eject  must  necessarily  vary 
with  the  character  of  the  human  subject ;  but  this 
does  not  prove  that  the  ejective  interpretation  has 
throughout  been  wrong  in  method:  it  only  proves 
that  such  interpretation  has  been  imperfect — and 
necessarily  imperfect  —  in  application. 

Such,  then,  I  conceive  to  be  one  of  the  most 
important  consequences  of  the  monistic  theory. 
Namely,  that  by  regarding  physical  causation  as 
everywhere  but  the  objective  or  phenomenal  aspect 
of  an  ejective  or  ontological  reality,  it  furnishes 
a  logical  basis  for  a  theory  of  things  which  is  at  the 
same  time  natural  and  spiritual.  On  the  objective 
aspect,  the  explanations  furnished  by  reason  are 
of  necessity  physical,  while,  on  the  ejective  aspect, 
such  explanations  are  of  necessity  metaphysical — 
or  rather,  let  us  say,  hyper-physical.  But  these 
two  orders  of  explanation  are  different  only  because 
their  modes  of  interpreting  the  same  events  are 
different.  The  objective  explanation  which  was 
given  (as  we  supposed)  by  Helmholtz  of  the  effects 
produced  on  the  human  brain  by  hearing  a  sonata, 
was  no  doubt  perfectly  sound  within  its  own 
category  ;  but  the  ejective  explanation  of  these 
same  effects  which  is  given  by  a  musician  is  equally 
sound  within  its  category.  And  similarly,  if  instead 
of  the  man-object  we  contemplate  the  world-object 
I  2 


n6  Monism. 

physical  causation  becomes  but  the  phenomenal 
aspect  of  psychical  causation ;  the  invariability  of  its 
sequence  becomes  but  the  expression  of  intentional 
order  ;  the  iron  rigidity  of  natural  law  becomes  the 
sensuous  manifestation  of  an  unalterable  consistency 
as  belonging  to  the  Supreme  Volition. 

My  object  in  this  paper  has  been  to  show  that 
the  views  of  the  late  Professor  Clifford  concerning 
the  influence  of  Monism  on  Theism  are  unsound. 
I  am  in  full  agreement  with  him  in  believing  that 
Monism  is  destined  to  become  the  generally 
accepted  theory  of  things,  seeing  that  it  is  the  only 
theory  of  things  which  can  receive  the  sanction  of 
science  on  the  one  hand  and  of  feeling  on  the  other. 
But  I  disagree  with  him  in  holding  that  this  theory 
is  fraught  with  implications  of  an  anti-theistic  kind. 
In  my  opinion  this  theory  leaves  the  question  of 
Theism  very  much  where  it  was  before.  That  is 
to  say,  while  not  furnishing  any  independent  proof 
of  Theism,  it  likewise  fails  to  furnish  any  inde- 
pendent disproof.  The  reason  why  in  Clifford's 
hands  this  theory  appeared  to  furnish  independent 
disproof,  was  because  he  persisted  in  regarding  the 
world  only  as  an  object :  he  did  not  entertain  the 
possibility  that  the  world  might  also  be  regarded 
as  an  eject.  Yet,  that  the  world,  under  the  theory 
of  Monism,  is  at  least  as  susceptible  of  an  ejective 
as  it  is  of  an  objective  interpretation,  I  trust  that 
I  have  now  been  able  to  show.  And  this  is  all 
that  I  have  endeavoured  to  show.  As  a  matter 
of  methodical  reasoning ,  it  appears  to  me  that 


The  World  as  an  Eject.          117 

Monism  alone  can  only  lead  to  Agnosticism. 
That  is  to  say,  it  leaves  a  clear  field  of  choice 
as  between  Theism  and  Atheism ;  and,  therefore, 
to  a  carefully  reasoning  Monist,  there  are  three 
alternatives  open.  He  may  remain  a  Monist,  and 
nothing  more;  in  which  case  he  is  an  agnostic. 
He  may  entertain  what  appears  to  him  independent 
evidence  in  favour  of  Theism,  and  thus  he  may 
become  a  theist.  Or  he  may  entertain  what 
appears  to  him  independent  evidence  in  favour  of 
Atheism,  and  thus  he  may  become  an  atheist. 
But,  in  any  case,  so  far  as  his  Monism  can  carry 
him,  he  is  left  perfectly  free  either  to  regard  the 
world  as  an  object  alone,  or  to  regard  the  world  as 
also  an  eject 1. 

1  It  may  be  explained  that  by  Agnosticism  I  understand  a  theory 
of  things  which  abstains  from  either  affirming  or  denying  the 
existence  of  God.  It  thus  represents,  with  regard  to  Theism, 
a  state  of  suspended  judgement ;  and  all  it  undertakes  to  affirm  is, 
that,  upon  existing  evidence,  the  being  of  God  is  unknown.  But  the 
term  Agnosticism  is  frequently  used  in  a  widely  different  sense,  as 
implying  belief  that  the  being  of  God  is  not  merely  now  unknown, 
but  must  always  remain  unknowable.  It  is  therefore  often  repre- 
sented that  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer,  in  virtue  of  his  doctrine  of  the 
Unknowable,  is  a  kind  of  apostle  of  Agnosticism.  This,  however, 
I  conceive  to  be  a  great  mistake.  The  distinctive  features  of  Mr. 
Spencer's  doctrine  of  the  Unknowable  are  not  merely  non-agnostic, 
but  anti-agnostic.  For  the  doctrine  affirms  that  we  have  this  much 
knowledge  of  God — namely,  that  if  He  exists,  He  must  for  ever  be 
unknown.  Without  question,  this  would  be  a  most  important  piece 
of  definite  knowledge  with  regard  to  Deity,  negative  though  it  be  ; 
and,  therefore,  any  man  who  holds  it  has  no  right  to  be  called  an 
agnostic. 

To  me  it  has  always  seemed  that  the  doctrine  of  the  Unknowable, 
in  so  far  as  it  differs  from  the  doctrine  of  the  Unknown,  is  highly 


n8  Monism, 

unphilosophical.  By  what  right  can  it  be  affirmed  that  Deity,  if  He 
exists,  may  not  reveal  the  fact  of  His  existence  to-morrow — and  this 
to  the  whole  human  race  without  the  possibility  of  doubt  ?  Or,  if 
there  be  a  God,  who  is  to  say  that  there  certainly  cannot  be  a  future 
life,  in  which  each  individual  man  may  have  unquestionable  proof  of 
Theism  ?  It  is  a  perfectly  philosophical  statement  for  any  one  to  make 
that,  as  matters  now  stand,  he  can  see  no  evidence  of  Theism  ;  but  to 
say  that  he  knows  the  human  race  never  can  have  such  evidence,  is 
a  most  unphilosophical  statement,  seeing  that  it  could  only  be  justified 
by  absolute  knowledge.  And,  on  this  account,  I  say  that  the  doctrine 
of  the  Unknowable,  in  so  far  as  it  differs  from  the  doctrine  of  the 
Unknown,  is  the  very  reverse  of  agnostic. 

Now,  the  theory  of  Monism  alone,  as  observed  in  the  text,  appears 
to  be  purely  agnostic  in  the  sense  just  explained.  If  in  some  parts 
of  the  foregoing  essay  I  appear  to  have  been  arguing  in  favour  of 
theistic  implications,  this  has  only  been  in  order  to  show  (as  against 
Clifford)  that  the  world  does  admit  of  being  regarded  as  an  eject. 
But  inasmuch  as — religious  faith  apart — we  are  not  able  to  verify 
any  such  ejective  interpretation,  we  are  not  able  to  estimate  its 
value.  Monism  sanctions  the  shading  of  x  as  deeply  as  we  choose ; 
but  the  shading  which  it  sanctions  is  only  provisional. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE  WILL   IN   RELATION   TO   MATERIALISM 
AND  SPIRITUALISM. 

IN  the  foregoing  chapters  I  have  considered  the 
theory  of  Monism,  first  in  contrast  with  the  theories 
of  Materialism  and  of  Spiritualism,  and  next  in  rela- 
tion to  the  theory  of  Theism.  In  this  chapter  and  that 
which  succeeds  it  I  propose  to  consider  Monism 
in  relation  to  the  Will.  To  do  this  it  is  needful  to 
begin  by  considering  the  problems  which  are 
presented  by  the  Will  in  relation  to  the  older 
theories  of  Materialism  on  the  one  hand  and  of 
Spiritualism  on  the  other. 

Although  the  phenomena  of  volition  have  occupied 
so  large  a  province  of  philosophical  literature,  the 
fundamental  problems  which  arise  in  connexion 
with  them  are  only  two  in  number,  and  both  admit 
of  being  stated  in  extremely  simple  terms.  The 
historical  order  in  which  these  two  problems  have 
arisen  is  the  inverse  of  their  logical  order.  For 
while  in  logical  order  the  two  problems  would  stand 
thus — Is  the  Will  an  agent  ?  If  so,  is  it  a  free  agent  ? 
— in  actual  discussion  it  was  long  taken  for  granted 


120  Monism. 

that  the  Will  is  an  agent,  and  hence  the  only 
controversy  gathered  round  the  question  whether 
the  Will  is  a  free  agent.  Descartes,  indeed,  seems 
to  have  entertained  the  prior  question  with  regard 
to  animals,  and  there  are  passages  in  the  Leviathan 
which  may  be  taken  to  imply  that  Hobbes  enter- 
tained this  question  with  regard  to  man.  But  it 
was  not  until  recent  years  that  any  such  question 
could  stand  upon  a  basis  of  science  as  distinguished 
from  speculation ;  the  question  did  not  admit  of 
being  so  much  as  stated  in  terms  of  science  until 
physiology  was  in  a  position  openly  to  challenge 
our  right  to  assume  that  the  Will  is  an  agent. 
Such  a  challenge  physiology  has  now  given,  and 
even  declared  that  any  assumption  of  volitional 
agency  is,  in  the  presence  of  adequate  physio- 
logical knowledge,  impossible. 

The  two  problems  which  I  thus  state  separately 
are  often,  and  indeed  generally,  confused  together ; 
but  for  the  purpose  of  clear  analysis  it  is  of  the 
first  importance  that  they  should  be  kept  apart. 
In  order  to  show  the  wide  distinction  between 
them,  we  may  best  begin  with  a  brief  consideration 
of  what  it  is  that  the  two  problems  severally 
involve ;  and  to  do  this  we  may  best  take  the 
problems  in  what  I  have  called  their  logical 
order. 

First,  then,  as  regards  the  question  whether  the 
Will  is  an  agent,  the  rival  theories  of  Materialism 
and  Spiritualism  stand  to  one  another  in  a  relation 
of  contradiction.  For  it  is  of  the  essence  of 


The  Will  in  relation  to  Materialism.    121 

Spiritualism  to  regard  the  Will  as  an  agent,  or  as 
an  original  cause  of  bodily  movement,  and  therefore 
as  a  true  cause  in  Nature.  On  the  other  hand, 
it  is  of  the  essence  of  Materialism  to  deny  that 
the  Will  is  an  agent.  Hitherto,  indeed,  materialists 
as  a  body  have  not  expressly  recognized  this 
implication  as  necessarily  belonging  to  their 
theory;  but  that  this  implication  does  necessarily 
belong  to  their  theory — or  rather,  I  should  say, 
really  constitutes  its  most  distinctive  feature — 
admits  of  being  easily  shown.  For  the  theory  that 
material  changes  are  the  causes  of  mental  changes 
necessarily  terminates  in  the  so-called  theory  of 
conscious  automatism — or  the  theory  that  so  far 
as  the  conditions  to  bodily  action  are  concerned, 
consciousness  is  adventitious,  bearing  the  same 
ineffectual  relation  to  the  activity  of  the  brain  as 
the  striking  of  a  clock  bears  to  the  time-keeping 
adjustments  of  the  clock-work.  From  this  conclu- 
sion there  is  no  possibility  of  escape,  if  once  we 
accept  the  premises  of  Materialism  ;  and  therefore 
I  say  it  belongs  to  the  essence  of  Materialism  to 
deny  the  agency  of  Will. 

Just  as  necessarily  does  it  belong  to  the  essence 
of  Monism  to  affirm  the  agency  of  Will.  For, 
according  to  this  theory,  while  motion  is  producing 
nothing  but  motion,  mind-change  nothing  but  mind- 
change,  both  are  producing  both  simultaneously; 
neither  could  be  what  it  is  without  the  other,  for 
each  is  to  the  other  a  necessary  counterpart  or 
supplement,  in  the  absence  of  which  the  whole 


122 


Monism. 


causation  (whether  regarded  from  the  physical  or 
mental  side)  would  not  be  complete. 

Now,  in  my  opinion  the  importance  of  the 
view  thus  presented  by  the  theory  of  Monism  is. 
for  all  purposes  of  psychological  analysis,  in- 
estimable. It  is  impossible  nowadays  that  such 
analysis  can  proceed  very  far  in  any  direction 
without  confronting  the  facts  presented  by  physi- 
ology :  hence  it  is  impossible  for  such  analysis  to 
confine  itself  exclusively  to  the  spiritual  or 
subjective  side  of  psychology.  On  the  other  hand, 
in  so  far  as  such  analysis  has  regard  to  the 
material  or  objective  side,  it  has  hitherto  appeared 
to  countenance — in  however  disguised  a  form — the 
dogmatic  denial  of  the  Will  as  an  agent.  Hence 
the  supreme  importance  to  psychology  of  recon- 
ciling the  hitherto  rival  theories  of  Spiritualism 
and  Materialism  in  the  higher  synthesis  which  is 
furnished  by  the  theory  of  Monism.  For,  obviously, 
in  the  absence  of  any  philosophical  justification  of 
the  Will  as  an  agent,  we  are  without  any  guarantee 
that  all  psychological  inquiry  is  not  a  vain  beating 
of  the  air.  If,  as  Materialism  necessarily  implies, 
the  Will  is  not  a  cause  in  Nature,  there  would  be 
no  reason  in  Nature  for  the  agency  either  of  feeling 
or  of  intelligence.  Feeling  and  intelligence  would, 
therefore,  stand  as  ciphers  in  the  general  constitution 
of  things ;  and  any  inquiry  touching  their  internal 
system  of  causation  could  have  no  reference  to  any 
scientific  inquiry  touching  causation  in  general. 
I  am  aware  that  this  truth  is  habitually  overlooked 


The  Will  in  relation  to  Materialism.   123 

by  psychologists  ;  but  it  is  none  the  less  a  truth  of 
fundamental  importance  to  the  whole  superstructure 
of  this  science.  Or,  in  other  words,  unless  psycho- 
logists will  expressly  consent  to  rear  their  science 
on  the  basis  provided  by  the  philosophical  theory 
of  Monism,  there  is  nothing  to  save  it  from  logical 
disintegration ;  apart  from  this  basis,  the  whole 
science  is,  so  to  speak,  built  in  the  air,  like  an 
unsubstantial  structure  of  clouds.  Psychologists, 
I  repeat,  habitually  ignore  this  fact,  and  constantly 
speak  of  feeling  and  intelligence  as  true  causes  of 
adjustive  action  ;  but  by  so  doing  they  merely  beg 
from  this  contradictory  theory  of  Spiritualism  a  flat 
denial  of  the  fundamental  postulate  on  which  they 
elsewhere  proceed — the  postulate,  namely,  that 
mental  changes  are  determined  by  cerebral  changes. 
Consider,  for  example,  the  following  passage  from 
Mr.  Spencer's  Principles  of  Psychology  (§  125), 
which  serves  to  show  in  brief  compass  the  logical 
incoherency  which  in  this  matter  runs  through  his 
whole  work : — 

'  Those  races  of  beings  only  can  have  survived  in  which, 
on  the  average,  agreeable  or  desired  feelings  went  along  with 
activities  conducive  to  the  maintenance  of  life,  while  dis- 
agreeable and  habitually-avoided  feelings  went  along  with 
activities  directly  or  indirectly  destructive  of  life  ;  and  there 
must  ever  have  been,  other  things  equal,  the  most  numerous 
and  long-continued  survivals  among  races  in  which  these 
adjustments  of  feelings  to  actions  were  the  best,  tending  ever 
to  bring  about  perfect  adjustment.' 

The  argument  here  is  that  the  'adjustments  of 
feelings  to  actions,'  when  once  attained,  leads  in 


124  Monism. 

turn  to  an  adjustment  of  actions  to  feelings — or,  as 
I  have  myself  stated  the  argument  in  my  Mental 
Evolution  in  Animals,  'the  raison  a" tire  of  Pleasure 
and  Pain  has  been  that  of  furnishing  organisms  with 
guides  to  adjustive  action  :  moreover,  as  in  the  case 
of  direct  sensation  dictating  any  simple  adjustment 
for  the  sake  of  securing  an  immediate  good,  so  in 
the  case  of  instinct  dictating  a  more  intricate  action 
for  the  sake  of  eventually  securing  a  more  remote 
good  (whether  for  self,  progeny,  or  community) ;  and 
so,  likewise,  in  the  case  of  reason  dictating  a  still  more 
intricate  adjustment  for  the  sake  of  securing  a  good 
still  more  remote — in  all  cases,  that  is,  where 
volition  is  concerned,  pleasures  and  pains  are  the 
guides  of  action.'  But  thus  to  affirm  that  pleasures 
and  pains  are  the  guides  of  action  is  merely  another 
way  of  affirming  that  the  Will  is  an  agent — a  cause 
of  bodily  movement,  and,  as  such,  a  cause  in 
Nature.  Now,  as  we  have  seen,  Mr.  Spencer  not 
only  affirms  this — or  rather  assumes  it — but  proceeds 
to  render  an  a  priori  explanation  of  the  accuracy 
of  the  guidance.  Yet  he  nowhere  considers  the 
fundamental  question — Why  should  we  suppose 
that  the  Will  is  an  agent  at  all  ?  Assuredly  the 
answer  given  by  physiology  to  this  question  is 
a  simple  denial  that  we  have  any  justification  so 
to  regard  the  Will :  in  view  of  her  demonstration 
of  conscious  automatism,  she  can  see  no  reason 
why  there  should  be  any  connexion  at  all  between 
a  subjective  feeling  of  pleasure  or  pain  and  an 
objective  fact  of  'agreement  or  disagreement  with  the 


The  Will  in  relation  to  Materialism.  125 

environment ' — nay,  one  of  the  most  eminent  of 
her  priesthood  has  declared  that  there  is  no  more 
connexion  between  the  ambition  of  a  Napoleon 
and  a  general  commotion  of  Europe,  than  there  is 
between  the  puff  of  a  steam-whistle  and  the 
locomotion  of  a  train.  And,  as  I  have  now 
repeatedly  insisted,  on  grounds  of  physiology  alone 
this  is  the  only  logical  conclusion  at  which  it  is 
possible  to  arrive.  Yet  Mr.  Spencer,  while  else- 
where proceeding  on  the  lines  of  physiology,  when- 
ever he  encounters  the  question  of  the  agency 
of  Will,  habitually  jumps  the  whole  gulf  that 
separates  Materialism  from  Spiritualism.  And  this 
wonderful  feat  of  intellectual  athletics  is  likewise 
performed,  so  far  at  least  as  I  am  aware,  by  every 
other  psychologist  who  has  proceeded  on  the  lines 
of  physiology.  Indeed,  the  logical  incoherency  is 
not  so  serious  in  Mr.  Spencer's  case  as  it  is  in  that 
of  many  other  writers  whom  I  need  not  wait  to 
name.  For  Mr.  Spencer  does  not  seek  to  found 
his  system  on  a  basis  of  avowed  Materialism,  and, 
therefore,  he  may  be  said  to  have  left  this  funda- 
mental question  of  volitional  agency  in  abeyance. 
But  all  those  writers  who  have  reared  their  systems 
of  psychology  on  a  basis  of  avowed  Materialism — 
or,  which  is  the  same  thing,  on  a  basis  of  physiology 
alone — lay  themselves  open  to  the  charge  of 
grossest  inconsistency  when  they  thus  assume  that 
the  Will  is  an  agent.  It  is  impossible  that  these 
writers  can  both  have  their  cake  and  eat  it.  Either 
they  must  forego  their  Materialism,  or  else  they 


i26  Monism. 

must  cease  to  speak  of '  motives  determining  action,' 
'  conduct  being  governed  by  pleasures  and  pains,' 
'  voluntary  movements  in  their  last  resort  being  all 
due  to  bodily  feelings,'  'the  highest  morality  and 
the  lowest  vice  being  alike  the  result  of  a  pursuit 
of  happiness,'  &c.  &c.  And,  so  far  as  I  can  see,  it 
is  only  in  the  way  above  indicated,  or  on  the  theory 
of  Monism,  that  it  is  possible,  without  ignoring  the 
facts  of  physiology  on  the  one  hand  or  those  of 
psychology  on  the  other,  philosophically  to  save 
the  agency  of  Will. 

From  this  brief  exposition  it  may  be  gathered 
that  on  the  materialistic  theory  it  is  impossible 
that  the  Will  can  be,  in  any  sense  of  the  term,  an 
agent ;  that  on  the  spiritualistic  theory  the  Will 
is  regarded  as  an  agent,  but  only  in  the  sense  of 
a  non-natural  or  miraculous  cause ;  and,  lastly, 
that  on  the  monistic  theory  the  WTill  is  saved  as  an 
agent,  or  may  be  properly  regarded  and  as  properly 
denominated  a  true  cause,  in  the  ordinary  sense  of 
that  term.  For  this,  as  well  as  for  other  reasons 
which  need  not  here  be  specified,  I  accept  in 
philosophy  the  theory  of  Monism  ;  and  am  thus 
entitled  in  psychology  to  proceed  upon  the 
doctrine  that  the  Will  is  an  agent.  We  have  next 
to  consider  the  ulterior  question  whether  upon  this 
theory  the  Will  may  be  properly  regarded  as 
a  free  agent. 

By  a  free  agent  is  understood  an  agent  that  is 
able  to  act  without  restraint,  or  spontaneously. 
The  word  '  free,'  therefore,  bears  a  very  different 


The  Will  in  relation  to  Materialism.   127 

meaning  when  applied  exclusively  to  the  Will,  and 
when  applied  more  generally  to  the  living  organism. 
For  we  may  properly  say  that  a  man,  or  an  animal, 
is  free  when  he,  or  it,  is  at  liberty  to  act  in 
accordance  with  desire.  Touching  the  fact  of 
freedom  in  this  sense  there  is,  of  course,  no  question. 
We  have  not  to  consider  the  possible  freedom  of 
man,  but  the  possible  freedom  of  Will ;  we  have 
not  to  contemplate  whether  a  man  may  be  free  to 
do  what  he  wills,  but  whether  he  can  be  free  to  will 
what  he  wills.  Such  being  the  question,  we  have  to 
consider  it  in  relation  to  the  three  philosophical 
theories  already  stated — Materialism,  Spiritualism, 
and  Monism. 

For  the  theory  of  Materialism  the  present 
question  has  no  existence.  If  this  announcement 
appears  startling,  it  can  only  be  because  no  mate- 
rialist has  ever  taken  the  trouble  to  formulate  his 
own-  theory  with  distinctness.  For,  as  previously 
shown,  Materialism  necessarily  involves  the  doctrine 
of  conscious  automatism ;  but,  if  so,  the  Will  is 
concluded  not  to  be  an  agent  at  all,  and  there- 
fore it  becomes  idle  to  discuss  whether,  in  any 
impossible  exercise  of  its  agency,  it  is  free  or 
subject  to  restraint.  The  most  that  in  this 
connexion  could  logically  stand  to  be  considered 
by  the  advocates  of  Materialism  would  be  whether 
or  not  the  adventitious  and  inefficacious  feelings  of 
subjectivity  which  are  associated  with  cerebral 
activity  are  determinate  or  free;  but  this  would 
probably  be  regarded  on  all  hands  as  a  somewhat 


128  Monism. 

useless  topic  of  discussion,  and  certainly  in  any 
case  would  have  no  reference  to  the  question  of 
free  agency.  The  point  to  be  clearly  understood  is 
that,  according  to  the  materialistic  theory,  a  motor 
is  distinct  from  a  motive,  although  in  some  unac- 
countable manner  the  motor  is  able  to  cause  the 
motive.  But  the  motive,  when  thus  caused,  is  not 
supposed  to  exert  any  causal  influence  on  bodily 
action  ;  it  is  supposed  to  begin  and  end  as  a  motive, 
or  never  itself  to  become  a  motor.  In  other  words, 
as  before  stated,  the  Will  is  not  supposed  to  be  an 
agent ;  and,  therefore,  to  this  theory  the  doctrine 
of  free-will  and  of  determinism  are  alike  irrelevant. 
We  need  not  wait  to  prove  that  this  important  fact 
is  habitually  overlooked  by  materialists  them- 
selves, or  that  whenever  a  materialist  espouses  the 
cause  of  determinism,  he  is  thereby  and  for  the 
time  being  vacating  his  position  as  a  materialist  ; 
for  if,  according  to  his  theory,  the  Will  is  not  an 
agent,  he  is  merely  impugning  his  own  doctrines  by 
consenting  to  discuss  the  conditions  of  its  agency. 

The  theory  of  Spiritualism  and  the  theory  of 
Monism  agree  in  holding  that  the  Will  is  an  agent ; 
and,  therefore,  to  both  of  these  theories  the 
question  whether  the  Will  is  a  free  agent  is  a  real 
question.  Here,  then,  it  devolves  upon  us  to  con- 
sider carefully  the  logical  status  of  the  rival 
doctrines  of  so-called  Liberty  and  Necessity.  For 
convenience  of  arrangement  in  what  follows,  we 
may  best  begin  with  the  doctrine  of  Necessity,  or 
Determinism. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE  WILL  IN   RELATION  TO   MONISM. 

WE  have  now  seen  that,  according  to  Material- 
ism, the  Will  is  not  an  agent,  while  according  both 
to  Spiritualism  and  to  Monism  the  Will  is  an 
agent.  Touching  the  further  question,  whether  the 
Will  is  a  free  agent,  we  have  seen  that  while  the 
question  does  not  exist  for  Materialism,  it  appears 
to  require  a  negative  answer  both  from  Spiritualism 
and  from  Monism.  For,  as  regards  its  relation  to 
Spiritualism,  when  once  the  ground  is  cleared  of 
certain  errors  of  statement  and  fallacies  of  reasoning, 
we  appear  to  find  that  unless  the  will  is  held  to 
be  motiveless — which  would  be  to  destroy  not  only 
the  doctrine  of  moral  responsibility,  but  likewise 
that  of  universal  causation — it  must  be  regarded 
as  subject  to  law,  or  as  determined  in  its  action  by 
the  nature  of  its  past  history  and  present  circum- 
stances. Lastly,  the  theory  of  Monism  appears 
likewise  to  deny  the  possibility  of  freedom  as  an 
attribute  of  Will  ;  for,  according  to  this  theory, 
mental  processes  are  one  and  the  same  with 
physical  processes,  and  hence  it  does  not  appear 

K 


130  Monism. 

that  the  doctrine  of  determinism  could  well  be 
taught  in  a  manner  more  emphatic. 

Thus  far,  then,  the  doctrine  of  determinism  is 
seen  to  be  victorious  over  the  doctrine  of  freedom 
all  along  the  line.  By  Materialism  the  question 
of  freedom  is  excluded  ab  initio  ;  by  Spiritualism 
and  by  Monism,  so  far  as  yet  seen,  it  can  be 
logically  answered  only  in  the  negative.  From 
which  it  follows  that  the  sense  of  moral  responsi- 
bility is  of  the  nature  of  a  vast  illusion,  the 
historical  genesis  of  which  admits  of  being  easily 
traced,  and  the  authority  of  which  is  thus  destroyed. 
Although  it  may  still  serve  to  supply  motives  to 
conduct,  it  seems  that  it  can  do  so  only  in  the  way 
that  belongs  to  superstition — that  Conscience,  as 
I  have  before  said,  is  the  bogey  of  mankind,  and 
that  belief  in  its  authority  is  like  belief  in  witch- 
craft, destined  to  dwindle  and  to  fade  before  the 
advance  of  a  better  or  more  complete  knowledge 
of  natural  causation. 

But  the  discussion  must  not  end  here.  Hitherto 
I  have  presented  the  case  Liberty  versus  Necessity 
with  all  the  impartiality  of  which  I  am  capable  ; 
but  I  have  done  so  without  travelling  an  inch 
beyond  those  limits  of  discussion  within  which 
the  question  has  been  debated  by  previous  writers. 
I  believe,  indeed,  that  I  have  pointed  out  several 
important  oversights  which  have  been  made  on 
both  sides  of  the  question ;  but  in  doing  this 
I  have  not  gone  further  than  the  philosophical 
basis  upon  which  the  question  has  been  hitherto 


The  Will  in  relation  to  Monism.    131 

argued.  My  object,  however,  in  publishing  these 
papers  is  not  that  of  destructive  criticism  ;  and 
what  I  have  done  in  this  direction  has  been  done 
only  in  order  to  prepare  the  way  for  what  is 
now  to  follow.  Having  shown,  as  it  appears  to 
me  conclusively,  that  upon  both  the  rival  theories 
of  Materialism  and  Spiritualism — the  doctrine  of 
Liberty,  and  therefore  of  Moral  Responsibility- 
must  logically  fall,  I  now  hope  to  show  that  this 
doctrine  admits  of  being  re-established  on  a  basis 
furnished  by  the  theory  of  Monism. 

It  often  happens  that  an  elaborate  structure  of 
argument,  which  is  perfectly  sound  and  complete 
upon  the  basis  furnished  by  a  given  hypothesis, 
admits  of  being  wholly  disintegrated  when  the 
fundamental  hypothesis  is  shown  to  be  either 
provisional  or  untrue.  And  such,  I  believe,  is  the 
case  with  the  issue  now  before  us.  For  the  issue 
Liberty  versus  Necessity  has  hitherto  been  argued 
on  the  common  assumption  that  natural  causation 
is  not  merely  the  most  ultimate  principle  which 
the  human  mind  can  reach ;  but  also  a  principle 
which  is,  in  some  way  or  another,  external  to  that 
mind.  It  has  been  taken  for  granted  by  both  sides 
in  the  controversy  that  if  our  volitions  can  be 
proved  to  depend  upon  natural  causation,  as  rigid 
in  its  sequences  within  the  sphere  of  a  human  mind 
as  within  that  of  a  calculating  machine,  there  must  be 
an  end  of  the  controversy  ;  seeing  that  our  volitions 
would  be  thus  proved  to  be  rigidly  determined 
by  those  same  principles  of  fixed  order,  or  '  natural 
K  2 


132 


Monism. 


law,'  which  are  external  to,  or  independent  of, 
the  human  mind — quite  as  much  as  they  are 
external  to,  or  independent  of,  the  calculating 
machine.  Now,  it  is  this  assumption  which  I 
challenge.  The  theory  of  Monism  entitles  one 
to  deny  that  when  we  have  driven  the  question 
down  to  the  granite  bed  of  natural  causation, 
nothing  more  remains  to  be  done  ;  according  to 
this  theory  it  still  remains  to  be  asked,  What  is 
the  nature  of  this  natural  causation  ?  Is  it  indeed 
the  ultimate  datum  of  experience,  below  which 
the  human  mind  cannot  go  ?  And  is  it  indeed  so 
far  external  to,  or  independent  of,  the  human 
mind,  that  the  latter  stands  to  it  in  the  relation 
of  a  slave  to  a  master — coerced  as  to  action  by 
the  conditions  which  that  master  has  laid  down  ? 

Now  these  questions  are  all  virtually  answered 
in  the  affirmative  by  the  dualistic  theory  of 
Spiritualism.  For  the  Will  is  here  regarded  as 
an  agent  bound  to  act  in  accordance  with  those 
conditions  of  external  necessity  which  dualism 
recognizes  as  natural  causation.  Its  internal 
causation  thus  becomes  but  the  reflex  of  external ; 
and  the  reflection  becomes  known  internally  as 
the  consciousness  of  motive.  Hence,  the  Will 
cannot  be  philosophically  liberated  from  the  toils 
of  this  external  necessity,  so  Long  as  dualism 
recognizes  that  necessity  as  existing  independently 
of  the  Will,  and  thus  imposing  its  conditions  on 
volitional  activity.  But  the  theory  of  Monism, 
by  identifying  external  with  internal  causation — 


The  Will  in  relation  to  Monism.    133 

or  physical  processes  with  psychical  processes — 
philosophically  saves  the  doctrine  of  freedom,  and 
with  it  the  doctrine  of  moral  responsibility.  More- 
over, it  does  so  without  relying  upon  any  precarious 
appeal  to  the  direct  testimony  of  consciousness 
itself.  As  this  view  of  the  subject  is  one  by  no 
means  easy  of  apprehension,  I  will  endeavour  to 
unfold  it  part  by  part. 

To  begin  with,  Monism  excludes  the  possibility 
of  volition  being  determined  by  cerebration.  Let 
us  suppose,  for  example,  that  a  sequence  of  ideas, 
A,  B,  C,  D,  occurs  in  the  mind,  which  on  its  obverse 
or  cerebral  aspect  may  be  represented  by  the 
sequence  a,  b.  c,  d.  Here  the  parallelism  is  not 
due,  as  supposed  by  Materialism,  to  a  determining 
Ab,  b  determining  Be,  &c. ;  it  is  due  to  Aa 
determining  Bb,  Bb  determining  Cc,  &c.  —  the  two 
apparently  diverse  causal  sequences  being  really 
but  one  causal  sequence.  If  the  determinist  should 
rejoin  that  a  causal  sequence  of  some  kind  is  all 
that  he  demands — that  the  Will  is  equally  proved 
to  be  unfree,  whether  it  be  bound  by  the  causal 
sequence  a,  b,  c,  d,  or  by  the  causal  sequence  Aa, 
Bb,  Cc,  Dd — I  answer  that  this  is  a  point  which 
we  have  to  consider  by-and-by.  Meanwhile  I  am 
only  endeavouring  to  make  clear  the  essential 
distinction  between  the  philosophical  theories  of 
Monism  and  Materialism.  And  the  effect  of  this 
distinction  is  to  show  that,  for  the  purposes  of 
clear  analysis,  we  may  wholly  neglect  either  side 
of  the  double  reality.  If  we  happen  to  be  engaged 


134  Monism. 

on  any  physiological  inquiry,  we  may  altogether 
neglect  the  processes  of  ideation  with  which  any 
process  of  cerebration  may  be  concerned  ;  while, 
if  we  happen  to  be  engaged  upon  any  psycho- 
logical inquiry,  we  may  similarly  neglect  the 
processes  of  cerebration  with  which  any  process 
of  ideation  may  be  concerned.  Seeing  that  each 
is  equally  an  index  of  a  common  sequence,  it 
can  make  no  difference  which  of  them  we  take 
as  our  guide,  although  for  purposes  of  practical 
inquiry  it  is  of  course  expedient  to  take  the 
cerebral  index  when  we  are  dealing  with  the 
objective  side  of  the  problem,  and  the  mental 
index  when  dealing  with  the  subjective.  In  the 
following  pages,  therefore,  I  shall  altogether  neglect 
the  cerebral  index.  The  inquiry  on  which  we 
are  engaged  belongs  to  the  region  of  mind,  and, 
therefore,  after  what  has  just  been  said,  it  will 
be  apparent  that  I  am  entitled  to  adopt  the 
standpoint  of  a  spiritualist,  to  the  extent  of 
fastening  attention  only  upon  the  mental  side  of 
the  problem.  For  although  the  theory  of  Monism 
teaches,  as  against  Spiritualism,  that  no  one  of 
the  mental  sequences  could  take  place  without  a 
corresponding  physical  sequence,  the  theory  also 
teaches  the  converse  proposition ;  and  therefore 
it  makes  no  difference  which  of  the  two  pheno- 
menal sequences  is  taken  as  our  index  of  the 
ontological. 

Now,  it  clearly  makes  a  great  difference  whether 
the     mental    changes    concerned    in    volition   are 


The  Will  in  relation  to  Monism.    135 

regarded  as  effects  or  as  causes.  According  to 
Materialism,  the  mental  changes  are  the  effects 
of  cerebral  changes,  which  were  themselves  the 
effects  of  precedent  cerebral  changes.  According  to 
Spiritualism,  these  mental  changes  are  the  causes, 
not  only  of  the  cerebral  changes,  but  also  of  one 
another.  According  to  Monism,  the  mental  changes 
may  be  regarded  as  the  causes  of  the  cerebral,  or  vice 
versa,  seeing  that  in  neither  case  are  we  stating 
a  real  truth — the  real  truth  being  that  it  is  only 
a  cerebro-mental  change  which  can  cause  any 
change  either  of  cerebration  or  of  mentation.  Now 
it  is  evident  that  if  the  mental  processes  were 
always  the  effects  of  cerebral  processes  (Materialism), 
there  could  be  no  further  question  with  regard  to 
Liberty  and  Necessity  ;  while,  if  the  mental  pro- 
cesses are  the  causes  both  of  the  cerebral  processes 
and  of  one  another  (Spiritualism),  the  question 
before  us  becomes  raised  to  a  higher  level.  The 
causality  in  question  being  now  regarded  as  purely 
mental,  the  will  is  no  longer  regarded  as  a  passive 
slave  of  the  brain,  and  the  only  thing  to  be  con- 
sidered is  whether  freedom  is  compatible  with 
causation  of  a  purely  mental  kind.  Now,  at  an 
earlier  stage  of  our  enquiry  I  have  argued  that  it  is 
not  ;  but  this  argument  was  based  entirely  upon 
spiritualistic  premises,  or  upon  the  assumption  that 
the  principle  of  causality  is  everywhere  external  to, 
or  independent  of,  the  human  mind — under  which 
assumption  I  cannot  see  that  it  makes  much 
difference  whether  the  coercion  comes  from  the 


136  Monism. 

brain  alone,  or  from  the  whole  general  system  of 
things  external  to  the  human  mind.  And  here 
it  is  that  I  think  the  theory  of  Monism  comes  to 
the  rescue. 

For,  if  physical  and  mental  processes  are  every- 
where consubstantial,  or  identical  in  kind,  it  can 
make  no  difference  whether  we  regard  their  se- 
quences as  objective  or  ejective,  physical  or  spiritual. 
Hence,  we  are  free  to  regard  all  causation  as  of 
a  character  essentially  psychical.  But,  if  so,  it 
must  be  self-contained  as  psychical ;  it  cannot  be 
in  any  way  determined  by  anything  from  without, 
seeing  that  outside  itself  there  is  nothing  in 
the  Universe.  Now,  if  this  is  true  of  the  World- 
eject,  it  must  also  be  true  of  the  Man-eject,  as  well 
as  of  the  Man-subject,  or  Ego.  If  all  causation  is 
psychical,  that  portion  of  it  which  belongs  to,  or  is 
manifested  by,  my  own  personality  is  not  laid  upon 
me  by  anything  from  without ;  it  is  merely  the 
expression  of  my  own  psychical  activity,  as  this  is 
taking  place  within  the  circumscribed  area  of  my 
own  personality.  And  this  activity  is  spontaneous, 
in  the  sense  that  it  is  not  coerced  from  without. 
All  the  sequences  which  that  activity  displays 
within  this  region  are  self-determined,  in  the  sense 
that  they  are  determined  by  the  self,  and  not  by 
any  agency  external  to  it.  The  only  influence 
which  any  external  agency  can  here  exert,  is  that 
of  insisting  that  bodily  action — the  physical  out- 
come of  my  psychical  processes — shall  be  in 
accordance  with  the  conditions  imposed  by  the 


The  Will  in  relation  to  Monism.    137 

internal  system  of  causation  ;  but  this  does  not 
influence  in  any  degree  those  mental  processes 
which  do  not  express  themselves  in  bodily  action. 
Hence,  it  may  be  perfectly  true  that  my  bodily 
action  in  the  past  might  have  been  different  from 
what  it  actually  was ;  for  as  this  action  was  the 
outcome  of  my  mentation  at  the  time  (according  to 
the  spiritual  index,  which  is  now  our  guide),  and  as 
this  mentation  was  not  coerced  from  without,  it 
might  very  well  have  been  different  from  what  it 
was.  Each  of  the  mental  sequences  at  that  time 
was  a  result  of  those  preceding  and  a  cause  of  those 
succeeding ;  but  behind  all  this  play  of  mental 
causation  there  all  the  while  stood  that  Self, 
which  was  at  once  the  condition  of  its  occurrence, 
and  the  First  Cause  of  its  action.  It  is  not  true 
that  that  Self  was  nothing  more  than  the  result  of 
all  this  play  of  mental  causation ;  it  can  only  have 
been  the  First  Cause  of  it.  For,  otherwise,  the 
mental  causation  must  have  been  the  cause  of  that 
causation,  which  is  absurd.  Who  or  What  it  was 
that  originally  caused  this  First  Cause  is,  of  course, 
another  question,  which  I  shall  presently  hope  to 
show  is  not  merely  unanswerable,  but  unmeaning. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  we  know  that  this 
Self  is  here,  and  that  it  can  thus  be  proved  to  be 
a  substance,  standing  under  the  whole  of  that  more 
superficial  display  of  mental  causation  which  it  is 
able  to  look  upon  introspectively — and  this  almost 
as  impersonally  as  if  it  were  regarding  the  display 
as  narrated  by  another  mind.  I  say,  then,  that 


138  Monism. 

the  theory  of  Monism  entitles  us  to  regard  this 
Self  as  the  fons  et  origo  of  our  mental  causation, 
and  thus  restores  to  us  the  doctrine  of  Liberty  with 
its  attendant  consequence  of  Moral  Responsibility. 

It  may  help  to  elucidate  this  matter  if  we  regard 
it  from  another  point  of  view.  According  to 
Hobbes,  'Liberty  is  the  absence  of  all  impediments 
to  action  that  are  not  contained  in  the  nature  and 
intrinsical  qualities  of  the  agent.'  Now,  if  we 
accept  this  definition,  it  is  easy  to  show  that  the 
theory  of  Monism  is  really  at  one  with  the  doctrine 
of  Liberty.  For,  in  the  first  place,  according  to  the 
theory  of  Monism,  the  neurosis  of  the  brain  could 
not  be  what  it  is  without  the  psychosis  of  the  mind. 
Consequently,  as  above  shown,  it  would  be  equally 
incorrect  to  say  that  the  neurosis  governs  the 
psychosis,  as  it  would  be  to  say  that  the  psychosis 
governs  the  neurosis.  But,  if  so,  the  Will  is  free  in 
accordance  with  Hobbes'  definition  of  freedom. 
Suppose,  for  example,  that  on  seeing  a  bone  I  think 
of  Professor  Flower,  then  remember  that  a  long 
time  ago  I  lent  his  book  on  Osteology  to  a  friend, 
and  forthwith  resolve  to  ask  my  friend  what  has 
become  of  it ;  here  my  ultimate  volition  would  be 
unfree  if  it  were  the  effect  of  physical  processes 
going  on  in  my  brain.  But  the  volition  might  be 
free  if  each  of  these  mental  processes  were  the 
result  of  the  preceding  one,  seeing  that  there  may 
then  have  been  '  an  absence  of  all  impediments  '  to 
the  occurrence  of  these  processes. 

Of  course  it  will  be  objected — as  I  have  myself 


The  Will  in  relation  to  Monism.    139 

urged  in  the  preceding  chapter — that  causal  action  of 
any  kind  is  incompatible  with  freedom  of  volition 
— that  if  there  be  any  such  causal  action,  even 
though  it  be  wholly  restricted  within  the  sphere 
of  mind,  the  Will  is  really  compelled  to  will  as  it 
does  will,  is  determined  to  determine  as  it  does 
determine,  and  hence  that  its  apparent  freedom  is 
illusory.  Hobbes'  definition,  it  may  be  urged,  when 
applied  to  the  case  of  the  Will,  is  equivocal.  No 
doubt  a  man  is  free  as  to  his  action^  if  there  be  an 
'  absence  of  all  impediments '  to  his  action — or,  in 
other  words,  if  he  is  able  to  act  as  he  wills  to  act. 
But  it  does  not  follow  that  he  is  free  as  to  his  will, 
even  though  there  be  an  absence  of  all  impediments 
to  his  willing  as  he  wills  to  will.  For  here  the  very 
question  is  as  to  whether  there  are  any  impediments 
to  his  willing  otherwise  than  he  does  will.  The  fact 
that  he  wills  to  will  as  he  does  will  proves  that  there 
are  no  impediments  to  his  willing  in  that  direction ; 
but  is  there  a  similar  absence  of  impediments  to 
his  willing  to  will  in  any  other  direction  ?  If  so, 
we  are  still  within  the  lines  of  determinism.  Thus 
Hobbes'  definition  of  freedom  really  applies  only 
to  freedom  of  bodily  action  ;  not  to  freedom  of 
volition,  seeing  that  if  my  will  is  caused  I  could 
not  have  willed  to  will  otherwise  than  I  did 
will.  Now,  the  answer  which  Monism  supplies  to 
this  objection  is  that  the  will  itself  is  here  the 
ultimate  agent,  and  therefore  an  agent  which  must 
be  identified  with  the  principle  of  causality.  In 
other  words,  the  very  reason  why  we  feel  that 


140  Monism. 

Hobbes'  definition  of  liberty,  while  perfectly  valid  as 
regards  bodily  action,  seems  to  lack  something 
when  applied  to  volition,  is  because  volition  belongs 
to  the  sphere  of  mind — belongs,  therefore,  to  that 
sphere  which  the  theory  of  Monism  regards  as 
identical  with  causality  itself.  Although  it  is  true 
that  volitions  are  caused  by  motives,  yet  it  is  the 
mind  which  conditions  the  motives,  and  therefore 
its  own  volitions.  It  is  not  true  that  the  mind  is 
always  the  passive  slave  of  causes,  known  to  it  as 
motives.  The  human  mind  is  itself  a  causal  agent, 
having  the  same  kind  of  priority  within  the  micro- 
cosm as  the  World-eject  has  in  the  macrocosm. 
Therefore  its  motives  are  in  large  part  matters  of 
its  own  creation.  In  the  intricate  workings  of  its 
own  internal  machinery  innumerable  patterns  of 
thought  are  turned  out,  some  of  which  it  selects  as 
good,  while  others  it  rejects  as  bad  ;  but  no  one  of 
which  could  have  come  into  being  at  all  without 
this  causal  agency  of  the  mind  itself. 

It  will  probably  be  objected  that  even  though  all 
this  were  granted,  we  cannot  thus  save  the  doctrine 
of  moral  responsibility.  For  it  may  appear  that  the 
liberty  which  is  thus  accorded  to  the  Will  is 
nothing  better  than  liberty  to  will  at  random,  as 
argued  in  my  previous  essay.  But  here  we  must 
observe  that  although  we  are  thus  shown  free  to 
will  at  random,  it  does  not  follow  that  we  are  like- 
wise free  to  act  in  accordance  with  our  volitions. 
And  this  is  a  most  important  distinction,  which 
libertarians  have  hitherto  failed  to  notice.  If  we 


The  Will  in  relation  to  Monism.   141 

are  free  to  will  in  any  direction,  it  follows,  indeed, 
that  we  are  free  to  will  at  random  ;  but  it  follows 
also,  and  for  this  very  reason,  that  we  are  free  to 
will  the  impossible.  True,  when  we  will  what  is 
known  to  be  impossible  of  execution,  we  call  the  act 
an  act  of  desire  ;  but  it  is  clearly  the  same  in  kind 
as  an  act  of  will,  and  differs  only  in  not  admitting 
of  being  translated  into  an  act  of  body.  Therefore 
I  say  that  the  restriction  which  is  imposed  upon  us 
by  the  conditions  of  causality,  whether  external  or 
internal,  is  not  any  restriction  as  to  willing,  but 
merely  as  to  doing.  It  is  not  in  the  subjective,  but 
in  the  objective  world  that  we  encounter  the 
'  bondage  of  necessity.' 

Now,  the  knowledge  that  we  are  thus  restricted 
as  to  bodily  action  imposes  that  kind  of  restraint 
upon  volition  which  is  termed  rational.  There  is 
nothing  in  the  nature  of  things  to  prevent  our 
willing  anything  that  we  wish  ;  but  there  is  some- 
thing in  the  nature  of  things  to  prevent  our  doing 
everything  that  we  will  ;  and  as  the  practical 
object  of  our  volition  is  that  of  determining  bodily 
action,  we  find  it  expedient  to  will  only  such  things 
as  we  believe  that  we  can  do.  To  this  extent, 
therefore,  the  Will  is  bound — namely,  by  the 
executive  capacity  of  the  body.  But,  strictly 
speaking,  this  is  not  a  binding  of  the  Will  qua 
Will.  Even  in  such  cases,  as  St.  Paul  says,  to 
will  may  be  present  with  us,  but  how  to  perform 
that  which  is  good  we  find  not.  I  say  then 
that  although  the  Will  is  free  to  will  whatever 


142  Monism. 

it  wills,  nevertheless  it  would  fail  in  its  essential 
use  or  object  did  it  refuse  to  will  in  accordance 
with  the  conditions  which  are  imposed  upon  its 
executive  capacity.  Again,  to  quote  St.  Paul,  the 
Will  might  say,  All  things  for  me  are  lawful ;  but 
all  things  are  not  expedient.  Now,  this  considera- 
tion of  expediency  is  one  of  constant  and  far- 
reaching  importance.  For  not  only,  as  already 
observed,  does  it  lead  to  volition  on  the  one  hand 
as  rational  ;  but  it  also  leads  to  volition  on  the 
other  hand  as  moral.  Let  us  take  the  two  points 
separately. 

Do  we  say  that  a  man  is  not  free  to  conduct 
a  scientific  research,  because  in  conducting  it  he 
must  employ  the  needful  apparatus  ?  Or  do  we  say 
that  a  man  is  not  free  to  marry,  because  in  order 
to  do  so  he  must  go  through  a  marriage  ceremony  ? 
Obviously,  to  say  such  things  would  sound  very 
like  talking  nonsense.  It  is  true  that  in  neither 
case  is  a  man  free  to  gain  his  object  without 
adopting  the  means  which  are  seen  to  be  necessary 
under  the  system  of  external  causation  in  which  he 
finds  himself;  but  this  does  not  mean  that  he  is 
not  free  to  do  as  he  wills,  unless  it  so  happens  that 
he  wills  to  do  the  impossible.  Thus,  within  the 
limits  that  are  set  by  the  conditions  of  causation, 
a  man  is  understood  to  be  free  to  act  as  he  wills 
so  long  as  he  is  not  '  impeded '  by  some  of  those 
conditions.  To  say  that  he  is  not  free  because 
he  cannot  get  beyond  those  conditions  would  be 
absurd,  since,  apart  from  these  conditions,  action  of 


The  Will  in  relation  to  Monism.    143 

any  kind  would  be  a  priori  impossible,  and  the 
man  would  have,  as  his  only  alternative,  no-action. 
Hence,  in  doing  we  must  conform  to  the  law  of 
causation — which,  indeed,  is  all  that  can  be  meant 
by  doing — and  if  in  willing  what  we  do  we  must 
also  conform  to  the  law  of  causation,  where  is  the 
difference  with  respect  to  freedom  ?  Such  restraint 
as  there  may  be  is  here  a  restraint  upon  bodily  action; 
not  at  all  upon  the  mental  action  which  we  call 
volition.  The  Will  may  will  in  any  way  that  it 
wills  to  will  ;  but  the  body  cannot  act  in  every  way 
that  the  Will  may  will  it  to  act ;  therefore  the  Will 
finds  it  expedient  to  will  only  in  such  ways  as  the 
body  can  act — i.  e.  to  conform  in  its  action  to  the 
external  system  of  causation.  If  this  condition  of 
all  action  is  held  to  be  compatible  with  freedom  in 
the  one  case,  so  in  consistency  must  it  be  held  in 
the  other.  Equally  in  either  case  the  agent  can 
only  be  properly  said  to  be  unfree,  if  he  be  subject 
to  causal  restraint  from  without.  And  in  neither 
case  does  the  universal  condition  of  acting  under 
the  law  of  causation  constitute  bondage,  in  any 
other  sense  than  that  of  furnishing  the  agent  with 
his  conditions  to  acting  in  any  way  at  all.  There- 
fore, unless  it  be  said  that  a  man  is  not  free  to  do 
as  he  wills  because  he  wills  to  do  the  impossible,  it 
cannot  be  denied  that  he  is  free  to  will  as  he  wills 
because  he  wills  according  to  law.  For  no  action 
of  any  kind  is  possible  contrary  to  law — a  general 
fact  which  goes  to  constitute  an  argument  a  pos- 
teriori for  the  rationality  of  the  World-eject — and 


144  Monism. 

if  volition  constituted  an  exception  to  this  general 
statement,  it  could  only  do  so  by  becoming  no- 
action.  Now,  it  is  by  thus  willing  according  to 
law — or  with  due  reference  to  those  external 
conditions  of  causality  with  which  the  executive 
capacity  has  to  do — that  volition  is  rendered 
rational.  The  restraint  laid  upon  volition  is  not 
laid  upon  it  as  volition,  but  only  in  respect  of 
execution.  A  man  may  will  to  marry  as  long  and 
as  hard  as  he  chooses ;  but  only  if  he  further  wills 
to  take  the  necessary  means  can  his  volition 
become  rational  ;  it  is  irrational  if  he  wills  to 
marry,  and  at  the  same  time  wills  not  to  go 
through  the  marriage  ceremony.  But  although 
irrational,  it  is  none  the  less  free.  Considered 
merely  as  an  act  of  volition  it  is  equally  free, 
whether  it  be  rational  or  irrational. 

And,  similarly,  it  is  equally  free  whether  it  be 
moral  or  immoral.  The  objection  that  an  uncaused 
volition  cannot  be  a  responsible  volition  depends 
for  its  validity  on  the  meaning  which  we  attach  to 
the  term  'uncaused.'  If  it  be  meant  that  the 
volition  arises  without  any  regard  at  all  to  the 
surrounding  conditions  of  life,  and  is  carried  into 
effect  without  the  agent  being  able  to  control  it  by 
means  of  any  other  voluntary  act ;  then,  indeed, 
whatever  else  such  an  agent  may  be,  he  certainly 
is  not  moral.  But  if  it  be  meant  that  among 
a  number  of  uncompleted  volitions  drawing  in 
different  directions — and  all  'uncaused'  in  the  sense 
of  belonging  immediately  to  the  Ego — one  of  them 


The  Will  in  relation  to  Monism.    145 

gains  an  advantage  by  a  conscious  reference  of  the 
mind  to  it  as  good  or  evil,  then  the  agent  who  is 
capable  of  giving  this  advantage  to  that  member  of 
the  system  may  properly  be  called  moral.  The 
man  who  willed  to  marry,  and  yet  willed  not  to  go 
through  the  marriage  ceremony,  was,  as  we  have 
seen,  irrational.  Similarly,  if  any  agent  wills  an 
action  without  being  able  to  consider  any  of  the 
consequences  which  it  may  involve  as  either  moral 
or  immoral,  such  an  agent  is  what  we  must 
properly  call  unmoral.  Even  in  such  an  agent, 
however,  the  Will  may  be  free  ;  only  it  would  act 
without  reference  to  any  moral  environment,  just  as 
the  lunatic  above  supposed  might  endeavour  to  act 
without  reference  to  any  social  environment. 

Let  us  look  at  the  whole  matter  in  yet  another 
light.  We  have  repeatedly  seen  that  the  question 
of  free-will,  and  therefore  of  moral  responsibility, 
depends  upon  the  question  as  to  whether  a  man's 
action  in  the  past  might  have  been  other  than  it 
was,  notwithstanding  that  all  the  conditions  under 
which  he  was  placed  remained  the  same.  Now,  to 
this  question  only  one  answer  can  be  given  by 
a  dualistic  theory  of  things,  whether  materialistic 
or  spiritualistic.  For  it  belongs  to  the  essence  of 
a  dualistic  theory  to  regard  the  principle  of  causa- 
tion as  a  principle  external  to,  and  independent  of. 
the  human  mind  ;  consequently,  all  the  conditions 
of  mental  causation  being  given,  a  certain  result  in 
the  way  of  volition  is  necessarily  bound  to  ensue — 
or,  in  other  words,  at  any  given  time  in  a  man's 

L 


146  Monism. 

mental  history,  his  action  cannot  have  been  other 
than  it  was.  But  now,  according  to  the  monistic 
theory,  all  causation  has  a  psychical  basis — being 
but  the  objective  expression  to  us  of  the  psychical 
activity  of  the  World-eject.  Consequently,  ac- 
cording to  this  theory,  the  course  of  even  strictly 
physical  causation  is  inevitable  or  necessary  only 
in  so  far  as  the  psychical  activity  of  the  World- 
eject  is  held  to  be  uniform,  or  consistent  within 
itself.  And  forasmuch  as  all  our  knowledge  of 
physical  causation  is  necessarily  empirical,  we  have 
but  very  inadequate  means  of  judging  how  far 
this  empirical  index  is  a  true  gauge  of  the  reality. 
We  can,  indeed,  predict  an  eclipse  centuries  in 
advance  ;  but  we  can  only  do  so  on  the  supposition 
that  such  and  such  physical  conditions  remain 
constant,  and  we  have  no  right  to  affirm  that  such 
must  be  the  case.  Our  knowledge  of  physical 
causation,  being  but  empirical,  is  probably  but 
a  very  inadequate  translation  of  the  psychical 
activity  of  the  World-eject  ;  and  hence,  not  only 
have  we  no  right  to  predict  a  future  eclipse  with 
certainty,  but  we  have  not  so  much  as  the  right  to 
affirm  that  even  a  past  eclipse  must  have  taken 
place  of  necessity.  For  we  have  no  right  to  affirm 
that  at  any  one  period  of  cosmic  history  the  action 
of  the  World-eject  must  have  been  what  it  was, 
or  could  not  have  been  other  than  it  was.  Our 
knowledge  of  the  obverse  aspect  of  this  action  (in 
the  course  of  physical  causation)  is,  as  I  have  said, 
purely  empirical ;  and  this  is  merely  another  way 


The  Will  in  relation  to  Monism.    147 

of  saying  that  although  we  do  know  what  the 
action  of  the  World-eject  has  been  at  such  and  such 
a  period  of  cosmic  history,  we  can  have  no  means 
of  knowing  what  else  it  might  have  been.  For 
anything  that  we  can  tell  to  the  contrary,  the  whole 
history  of  the  solar  system,  for  example,  might 
have  been  quite  different  from  what  it  has  been  ; 
the  course  which  it  actually  has  run  may  have  been 
but  one  out  of  an  innumerable  number  of  possible 
alternatives,  any  other  of  which  might  just  as  well 
have  been  adopted  by  the  World-eject. 

Now,  if  this  is  true  of  natural  causation  in  the 
case  of  the  macrocosm,  it  would  appear  to  be 
equally  so  of  natural  causation  in  the  case  of  the 
microcosm.  Indeed,  prediction  in  the  case  of 
human  activity  is  so  much  less  certain  than  in  the 
case  of  cosmic  activity,  that  the  attribute  of  free- 
will is  generally  ascribed  to  the  former,  while  rarely 
suggested  as  possibly  belonging  to  the  latter. 
And  similarly  as  regards  past  action.  If  we  are 
unable  to  say  that  at  any  period  in  the  past  history 
of  the  solar  system  the  World-eject  might  not  have 
deflected  the  whole  stream  of  events  into  some 
other  channel,  how  can  we  be  able  to  say  that  at 
any  given  period  of  his  past  history  the  Man-eject 
could  not  have  performed  an  analogous  act  ? 
Obviously,  the  only  reason  why  we  are  not 
accustomed  to  entertain  this  supposition  in  either 
case,  is  because  our  judgements  are  beset  with  the 
assumption  that  the  principle  of  causality  is  prior 
to  that  of  mind — something  of  the  nature  of  Fate 
L  2 


148  Monism. 

superior  even  to  the  gods.  And,  no  less  obviously, 
if  once  we  see  any  reason  to  regard  the  principle  of 
causality  as  merely  co-extensive  with  that  of  mind, 
the  whole  question  as  between  Necessity  and  Free- 
will lapses ;  there  is  nothing  to  show  that  a  man's 
action  in  the  past  might  not  have  been  other  than 
it  was.  The  only  outward  restraint  placed  upon 
the  exercise  of  his  Will  is  then  seen  to  be  imposed 
by  the  conditions  of  its  executive  capacity,  and 
this  restraint  it  is  that  constitutes  man  a  rational 
agent.  On  the  other  hand,  the  structure  of 
conscience — however  we  may  suppose  this  to  have 
been  formed — imposes  that  further  and  inward 
restraint  upon  his  Will,  which  constitutes  man 
a  moral  agent.  But  neither  of  these  restraints  can 
properly  be  said  to  constitute  bondage  in  the  sense 
required  by  Necessitarianism,  because  neither  of 
them  requires  that  the  man's  Will  must  will  as 
it  does  will ;  they  require  merely  that  his  Will 
should  act  in  certain  ways  if  it  is  to  accomplish 
certain  results ;  and  to  this  extent  only  is  it 
subject  to  law,  or  to  the  incidence  of  those  external 
influences  which  help  to  shape  our  motives. 

But  if  this  is  so,  is  it  not  obvious  that  the  sense 
of  moral  responsibility  is  rationally  j ustified  ?  This 
sense  goes  upon  the  supposition  that  a  man's 
conduct  in  the  past  might  have  been  different  from 
what  it  was.  Clearly,  therefore,  no  question  of 
moral  responsibility  can  ever  obtain  in  cases  where 
the  general  system  of  external  causation,  or  natural 
law,  rendered  an  alternative  line  of  action  physically 


The  Will  in  relation  to  Monism.    149 

impossible.  The  question  of  moral  responsibility 
can  only  obtain  in  cases  where  two  or  more  lines  of 
conduct  were  alike  possible,  so  far  as  the  external 
system  of  causation  is  concerned — or  where  the  Will 
was  equally  free  to  choose  between  two  or  more 
courses  of  bodily  action.  In  other  words,  the 
question  of  moral  responsibility  has  nothing  to  do 
with  the  only  kind  of  bondage  to  which,  according 
to  our  present  point  of  view,  the  Will  is  subject — 
namely  the  bondage  of  being  rationally  obliged  to 
will  only  what  is  capable  of  performance.  The 
question  of  moral  responsibility  has  only  to  do  with 
the  system  of  causation  which  is  inherent  in  the 
mind  itself;  not  with  the  system  that  is  external 
to  the  mind.  And  as  the  theory  of  Monism 
identifies  the  mind  with  this  its  own  inherent 
system  of  causation — or  regards  a  man's  Will  as 
the  originator  of  a  particular  portion  of  general 
causality — it  follows  from  the  theory  that  a  man  is 
justly  liable  to  moral  praise  or  blame  as  the  case 
may  be :  the  moral  sense  no  longer  appears  as 
a  gigantic  illusion :  conscience  is  justified  at  the 
bar  of  reason. 

It  appears  to  me  impossible  that  any  valid 
exception  can  be  taken  to  the  above  reasoning,  if 
once  the  premiss  is  granted — namely,  that  the 
principle  of  Causality  admits  of  being  regarded  as 
identical  with  that  of  Volition.  For  if  Cause  is 
but  another  name  for  Will — whether  the  Will  be 
subjective  or  ejective — it  follows  that  my  will  is 
a  first  cause,  which  is  determined  by  other  causes 


150  Monism. 

only  in  so  far  as  the  executive  capacity  of  my  body 
is  so  determined.  As  the  whole  stress  of  any 
objection  to  the  present  argument  must  thus  be 
brought  to  bear  upon  the  validity  of  this  its  funda- 
mental premiss,  a  few  words  may  now  be  said  to 
show  that  the  premiss  is  not  wholly  gratuitous. 
Of  course  the  reason  why  at  first  sight  it  is  apt  to 
appear,  not  only  gratuitous,  but  even  grotesque,  is 
because  in  these  days  of  physical  science  the  minds 
of  most  of  us  are  dominated  by  the  unthinking 
persuasion  that  the  principle  of  causality  is  the 
most  ultimate  principle  which  our  minds  can  reach. 
Most  of  us  accept  this  persuasion  as  almost  of  the 
nature  of  an  axiom,  and  hence  the  mere  suggestion 
that  our  own  volitions  are  really  uncaused  appears 
to  us  of  the  nature  of  a  self-evident  absurdity. 
A  little  thought,  however,  is  enough  to  show  that 
the  only  ground  of  reason  which  this  strong 
prepossession  can  rest  upon,  is  the  assumption  that 
the  principle  of  causality  is  logically  prior  to  that 
of  mind.  Therefore  it  is  the  validity  of  this 
assumption  that  we  have  here  to  investigate. 

In  the  first  place,  then,  the  assumption  is  ipso 
facto  irrational.  For  it  is  evident  that  in  order  to 
make  the  assumption  there  must  already  be  a  mind 
to  make  it.  In  other  words,  the  very  conception 
of  the  principle  of  causality  implies  a  thinking 
substance  wherein  that  conception  arises,  and  there- 
fore, as  a  mere  matter  of  formal  statement,  it  is 
impossible  to  assign  logical  priority  to  this  con- 
ception over  the  thing  whereby  it  is  conceived. 


The  Will  in  relation  to  Monism.    151 

In  the  next  place,  when  we  carefully  analyze  the 
nature  of  this  conception  itself,  we  find  that  it  arises 
immediately  out  of  our  conception  of  Being  as 
Being.  This  is  shown  by  the  idea  of  equivalency 
between  cause  and  effect,  which  is  an  essential 
feature  of  the  conception  of  causality  as  such.  In 
other  words,  the  statement  of  any  causal  relation  is 
merely  a  statement  of  the  fact  that  both  the  matter 
and  the  energy  concerned  in  the  event  were  of 
a  permanent  nature  and  unalterable  amount. 
Therefore,  if  the  ultimate  Reality  is  mental, 
Causation  must  be  ontologically  identical  with 
Volition.  And  that  the  ultimate  Reality  is  either 
mental,  or  something  greater,  seems  to  be  proved 
by  the  consideration  that  if  it  be  supposed  anything 
less,  there  must  be  an  end  of  the  conception  of 
equivalency  as  between  cause  and  effect,  and  so 
of  the  conception  of  causality  itself ;  for,  clearly,  if 
my  mind  has  been  caused  by  anything  less  than 
itself,  there  is  an  end  of  any  possible  equivalency 
between  the  activity  of  that  thing  as  a  cause,  and 
the  occurrence  of  my  mind  as  an  effect ]. 

1  '  Whatsoever  is  first  of  all  things  must  necessarily  contain  it, 
and  actually  have,  at  least,  all  the  perfections  that  can  ever  after 
exist ;  nor  can  it  ever  give  to  another  any  perfection  that  it  hath  not 
actually  in  itself,  or  at  least  in  a  higher  degree '  (Locke).  To  this 
argument  Mill  answers,  'How  vastly  nobler  and  more  precious,  for 
instance,  are  the  vegetables  and  animals  than  the  soil  and  manure 
out  of  which,  and  by  the  properties  of  which,  they  are  raised  up  1 
But  this  stricture  is  not  worthy  of  Mill.  The  soil  and  manure  do  not 
constitute  the  whole  cause  of  the  plants  and  animals.  We  must 
trace  these  and  many  other  con-causes  (conditions)  back  and  back  till 
we  come  to  '  whatsoever  is  first  of  all  things ' :  it  is  merely  childish  to 


152 


Monism. 


Lastly,  the  conception  of  causality  essentially 
involves  the  idea  of  finality  as  existing  somewhere. 
Here  I  cannot  do  better  than  quote  some  extracts 
from  Canon  Mozley's  essay  on  '  The  Principle  of 
Causation,'  as  he  manages  very  tersely  to  convey  the 
gist  of  previous  philosophizing  upon  this  subject. 

'  He  (Clarke)  brings  out  simply  at  bottom  the  meaning  and 
significance  of  an  idea  in  the  human  mind,  that  there  is 
implied  in  the  very  idea  itself  of  cause,  firstly,  that  it  causes 
something  else  ;  and  secondly,  that  it  is  uncaused  itself. .  .  . 
An  infinite  series  of  causes  does  not  make  a  cause  ;  ...  an 
infinite  succession  of  causes  rests,  by  the  very  hypothesis, 
upon  no  cause  ;  each  particular  one  rests  on  the  one  which 
follows  it,  but  the  whole  rests  upon  nothing.  ...  If  from  one 
cause  we  have  to  go  back  to  another,  that  which  we  go  back 
from  is  not  the  cause,  but  that  which  we  go  back  to  is.  The 
very  idea  of  cause,  as  I  have  said,  implies  a  stop ;  and 
wherever  we  stop  is  the  cause.  ...  A  true  cause  is  a  First 
Cause.  . .  .  The  atheistic  idea  thus  does  not  correspond  to  the 
idea  of  reason.  The  atheist  appears  to  acknowledge  the 
necessity  of  a  cause,  and  appears  to  provide  for  it ;  but 
when  we  come  to  his  scheme  it  fails  exactly  in  that  part  of 
the  idea  which  clenches  it,  and  which  is  essential  to  its 
integrity  ;  it  fails  in  providing  a  stop  ;  .  .  .  One  might  say  to 
him,  Why  do  you  give  yourself  the  trouble  to  supply  causation 
at  all  ?  You  do  so  because  you  consider  yourself  obliged  in 
reason  to  do  it,  but  if  you  supply  causation  at  all,  why  not 
furnish  such  a  cause  as  reason  has  impressed  upon  you,  and 
which  is  inherent  in  your  mind — a  cause  which  stands  still, 
an  original  cause  ?  If  you  never  intended  to  supply  this,  it 
must  have  been  because  you  thought  a  real  cause  was  not 
wanted  ;  but  if  you  thought  a  cause  not  wanted,  why  not 

choose  some  few  of  the  conditions,  and  arbitrarily  to  regard  them  as 
alone  the  efficient  causes. 


The  Will  in  relation  to  Monism.    153 

have  said  from  the  first  that  causes  were  not  wanted,  and 
said  from  the  first  that  events  could  take  place  without 
causes  ? ' 

Or,  to  quote  a  more  recent  authority,  and  one 
speaking  from  the  side  of  physical  science,  Prof. 
Huxley  writes  : — 

'  The  student  of  nature  who  starts  from  the  axiom  of  the 
universality  of  the  law  of  causation,  cannot  refuse  to  admit 
an  eternal  existence ;  if  he  admits  the  conservation  of  energy, 
he  cannot  deny  the  possibility  of  an  eternal  energy ;  if  he 
admits  the  existence  of  immaterial  phenomena  in  the  form 
of  consciousness,  he  must  admit  the  possibility,  at  any  rate,  of 
an  eternal  series  of  such  phenomena ;  and,  if  his  studies 
have  not  been  barren  of  the  best  fruit  of  the  investigation  of 
nature,  he  will  have  enough  sense  to  see  that,  when  Spinoza 
says,  "  Per  Deum  intelligo  ens  absolute  infinitum,  hoc  est 
substantiam  constantem  infinitis  attributis,"  the  God  so 
conceived  is  one  that  only  a  very  great  fool  would  deny, 
even  in  his  heart.  Physical  science  is  as  little  Atheistic  as  it 
is  Materialistic1.' 

Now,  if  it  thus  belongs  to  the  essence  of  our  idea 
of  causation  that  finality  must  be  reached  some- 
where, I  do  not  know  where  this  is  so  likely  to  be 
reached  as  at  that  principle  wherein  the  idea  itself 
takes  its  rise — viz.  Mind.  But,  if  so,  the  state- 
ment that  any  particular  acts  of  mind  are  uncaused 
ceases  to  present  any  character  of  self-evident 
absurdity. 

And  the  argument  need  not  end  here.  For 
Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  has  shown  that  our  idea  of 
causation,  not  merely  requires  a  mind  for  its 

1  Collected  Essays,  vol.  ix. '  Evolution  and  Ethics,'  p.  140. 


i54  Monism. 

occurrence,  but  that  in  every  mind  where  it  does 
occur  it  has  been  directly  formed  out  of  experiences 
of  effort  in  acts  of  volition.  So  that  whether  we 
analyze  the  idea  of  cause  as  we  actually  discover 
it  in  our  own  minds,  or  investigate  the  history  of 
its  genesis,  we  alike  find,  as  we  might  have 
antecedently  expected,  that  it  is  dependent  on  our 
more  ultimate  idea  of  mind  as  mind  ;  the  con- 
ception of  causality  is  not,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
original  or  primal,  but  derivative  or  secondary. 
Therefore,  if  this  conception  necessarily  involves 
the-  postulation  of  a  first  cause,  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  such  a  cause  can  only  be  conceived  as  of 
the  nature  of  mind.  From  which  it  follows  that 
each  individual  mind  requires  to  be  regarded — if  it 
is  regarded  at  all — as  of  the  nature  of  a  first  cause. 
From  this,  however,  it  does  not  follow  that  each 
individual  mind  requires  to  be  regarded  as  wholly 
independent  of  all  other  causes,  or  as  never  subject 
to  any  causal  influence  which  may  be  exercised  by 
other  minds.  Although  each  mind  presents  the 
feature  of  finality  or  spontaneity,  this  does  not 
hinder  that  it  also  presents  the  feature  of  relation 
to  other  minds,  which,  therefore,  are  able  to  act 
upon  it  in  numberless  ways.  Now,  whether  these 
minds  are  the  minds  of  other  men,  of  other  intelligent 
beings,  or  of  the  whole  World-eject,  the  causal 
activity  which  is  exerted  upon  my  mind  expresses 
itself  in  that  mind  as  a  consciousness  of  motives. 
But  although  these  motives  may  help  to  determine 
my  volitions,  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that 


The  Will  in  relation  to  Monism.    155 

they  are  themselves  the  volitions,  or  that  without 
them  my  mind  would  cease  to  be  itself  a  causal 
agent.  On  the  contrary,  if  this  were  supposed, 
the  supposition  would  amount  to  destroying  the 
causal  agency  of  my  own  mind,  which,  as  we  have 
just  seen,  must  either  be  original  or  not  at  all. 

The  way,  therefore,  that  the  matter  stands  is 
this.  In  so  far  as  the  microcosm  is  a  circumscribed 
system  of  being — a  thinking  substance,  a  person- 
ality— it  is  of  the  nature  of  a  first  cause,  free  to 
act  in  any  direction  as  to  its  thinking  and  willing, 
even  though  its  thinking  should  be  irrational  as 
to  truth,  and  its  willing  impossible  as  to  execu- 
tion. But  in  so  far  as  the  microcosm  enters  into 
relation  with  the  macrocosm,  the  system  of  ex- 
ternal causation  which  it  encounters  determines 
the  character  of  its  volitions.  For  although  these 
volitions  are  themselves  of  the  nature  of  first 
causes,  it  is  no  contradiction  to  say  that  they  are 
— at  all  events  in  large  measure — determined  by 
other  and  external  causes.  This  is  no  contradic- 
tion because,  although  they  are  thus  determined, 
it  does  not  follow  that  they  are  thus  determined 
necessarily,  and  this  makes  all  the  difference 
between  the  theory  of  will  as  bond  or  free.  In 
any  stream  of  secondary  causation  each  member 
of  the  series  is  understood  to  determine  the  next 
member  of  necessity ;  and  it  is  because  this  notion 
is  imported  into  psychology  that  the  theory  of 
determinism  regards  it  as  axiomatic  that,  if  our 
volitions  are  in  any  way  caused  at  all,  they  can  only 


156  Monism. 

be  caused  by  way  of  necessity;  and  hence  that 
under  the  operation  of  any  given  set  of  motives 
the  action  of  the  will  can  only  take  place  in  the 
direction  of  the  resultant.  But  any  such  axiom 
is  valid  only  within  the  region  of  second  causes. 
On  the  hypothesis  that  volitions  are  first  causes, 
the  axiom  is  irrelevant  to  them  ;  for  although  it 
may  be  true  that  they  are  determined  by  causes 
from  without,  it  may  not  be  true  that  they  are 
thus  determined  of  necessity :  their  intrinsic 
character  as  themselves  first  causes,  although 
not  isolating  them  from  any  possible  contact  with 
other  causes,  nevertheless  does  protect  them  from 
being  necessarily  coerced  by  these  causes,  and 
therefore  from  becoming  but  the  mere  effects  of 
them.  Such  influence,  or  determination,  as  is 
exerted  upon  the  Will  by  these  external  causes 
is  exerted  only  because  any  individual  mind  is  not 
itself  a  macrocosm,  but  a  microcosm  in  relation  to 
a  macrocosm.  If  it  were  itself  a  macrocosm,  standing 
out  of  relation  to  all  other  being,  its  prime  causa- 
tion would,  of  course,  be  wholly  uninfluenced  by 
any  other  causation  ;  its  volitions  would  then  be 
concerned  only  with  the  determination  of  its  own 
thoughts  in  a  constant  stream  of  purely  subjective 
contemplation,  such  as  that  which  the  Hindoo 
philosophy  attributes  to  God.  But  as  the  human 
mind  discovers  itself  as  existing  in  close  and 
complex  relations  with  an  external  world  of  an 
orderly  character,  the  human  mind  finds  that  it 
is,  as  before  said,  expedient  to  adapt  the  course  of 


The  Will  in  relation  to  Monism.   157 

its  own  causal  activity  so  as  to  bring  it  into 
harmony  with  the  external  order.  For,  although 
its  own  causal  activity  is  primal,  it  by  no  means 
follows  that  on  this  account  it  is  almighty;  hence, 
even  although  it  be  primal,  it  is  nevertheless  under 
the  necessity  of  adopting  means  in  order  to  secure 
its  ends — or,  in  other  words,  of  adjusting  its 
volitions  (if  they  are  to  be  practically  efficient) 
to  the  conditions  which  are  imposed  upon  its 
activity  by  the  orderly  system  of  the  external 
world.  Which  is  merely  another  way  of  stating 
the  conclusion  previously  reached — viz.  that  the 
only  necessity  which  can  be  proved  to  govern  our 
volitions  is  the  necessity  which  is  imposed  by 
our  own  considerations  of  reason  and  morality. 
Although  we  find  that  it  is  expedient  to  adapt  our 
own  causal  activity  to  that  larger  system  of  causal 
activity  by  which  we  are  surrounded — seeing  that 
we  must  do  so  necessarily  if  we  are  to  act  at  all — 
it  by  no  means  follows  that  we  are  bound  to  will 
what  is  expedient.  In  other  words,  the  necessity 
laid  upon  us  by  the  system  of  external  causation 
is  a  necessity  to  adopt  means  for  the  attainment 
of  ends  ;  not  a  necessity  to  will  the  ends.  And 
although  in  many  cases  this  distinction  may  appear 
to  be  practically  unmeaning — seeing  that  no  man 
wills  what  he  knows  to  be  impossible  of  execution, 
and  therefore  that  to  say  he  is  necessarily  prevented 
from  doing  a  certain  thing  seems  practically  equi- 
valent to  saying  that  he  is  necessarily  prevented 
from  willing  that  thing — in  all  cases  where  any 


158  Monism. 

question  of  moral  responsibility  can  possibly  obtain, 
the  distinction  is  one  of  fundamental  importance. 
For,  as  already  shown,  any  question  of  moral 
responsibility  can  only  obtain  where  two  or  more 
lines  of  action  are  alike  possible,  and  therefore 
where  no  necessity  is  laid  upon  the  man  in  respect 
of  carrying  out  his  volitions,  in  whichever  direction 
they  may  eventually  proceed.  Although  in  any 
event  he  is  necessarily  bound  to  adopt  means  in 
order  to  secure  his  ends,  the  moral  quality  of  his 
choice  has  reference  only  to  the  ends  which  he 
chooses;  not  at  all  to  the  fact  that  he  has  to 
employ  means  for  the  purpose  of  attaining  them. 
And  even  though  his  choice  be  influenced  by  his 
physical  and  social  environment — as  it  must  be 
if  it  be  either  rational  on  the  one  hand  or  moral 
on  the  other — it  does  not  follow  that  this  influence 
is  of  a  kind  to  neutralize  or  destroy  the  causal  nature 
of  his  own  volition.  For  the  influence  which  is  thus 
exerted  cannot  be  exerted  necessarily,  unless  we 
suppose  that  the  Will  is  not  a  first  cause,  which  is 
the  possibility  now  under  consideration.  If  the 
Will  is  a  first  cause,  the  influences  brought  to  bear 
upon  it  by  its  relation  to  other  causes — and  in  virtue 
of  which  it  is  constituted,  not  only  a  cause  primal, 
but  also  a  cause  rational  and  moral — these  influences 
differ  toto  coelo  from  those  which  are  exercised  by 
any  members  in  a  series  of  secondary  causes  upon 
the  next  succeeding  causes.  And  the  difference 
consists  in  the  absence  of  necessary  or  uncon- 
ditional sequence  in  the  one  case,  and  its  presence 


The  Will  in  relation  to  Monism.    159 

in  the  other.  However  strong  the  determining 
influence  of  a  motive  may  be,  if  the  Will  is  a  first 
cause,  the  motive  must  belong  to  a  different  order 
of  causal  relation  from  a  motor ;  for,  no  matter 
how  strong  the  determining  influence  may  be,  ex 
hypothesi  it  can  never  attain  to  the  strength 
of  necessity;  the  Will  must  ever  remain  free 
to  overcome  such  influence  by  an  adequate 
exercise  of  its  own  power  of  spontaneous  action, 
or  of  supplying  de  novo  an  additional  access  of 
strength  to  some  other  motive.  Of  course,  as 
a  general  rule,  the  Will  allows  itself  to  be  influ- 
enced by  motives  supplied  immediately  by  its 
relations  with  the  external  world ;  but  this  is  so 
only  because  the  thinking  substance  well  knows 
that  it  is  expedient  so  to  fall  in  with  the  general 
stream  of  external  causation.  Hence,  as  a  general 
rule,  it  is  only  in  cases  where  the  stream  of 
external  causation  is  drawing  the  will  in  different 
directions  that  the  causal  activity  of  the  Will 
itself  is  called  into  play.  Or  rather,  I  should  say, 
it  is  only  in  such  cases  that  we  become  conscious 
of  the  fact.  In  the  case  of  every  voluntary 
movement  the  primal  activity  of  Will  must  be 
concerned  (and  this  even  in  the  case  of  the  lower 
animals) ;  but  as  the  vast  majority  of  such  move- 
ments are  performed  by  way  of  response  to 
frequently  recurring  circumstances,  the  response 
which  experience  has  shown  to  be  most  expedient 
is  given,  as  it  were,  automatically,  or  without  the 
occurrence  of  any  adverse  motive.  But  in  cases 


160  Monism. 

where  motives  are  drawing  in  different  directions, 
we  become  conscious  of  an  effort  of  Will  in 
choosing  one  or  other  line  of  conduct,  and,  accord- 
ing to  our  present  hypothesis,  this  consciousness  of 
effort  is  an  expression  of  the  work  which  the  Will 
is  doing  in  the  way  of  spontaneous  causation. 

Thus,  upon  the  whole,  if  we  identify  the  principle 
of  causation  with  the  principle  of  mind — as  we 
are  bound  to  do  by  the  theory  of  Monism — we 
thereby  draw  a  great  and  fundamental  distinction 
between  causation  as  this  occurs  in  the  external 
world,  and  as  it  occurs  within  the  limits  of  our 
own  subjectivity.  And  the  distinction  consists 
in  the  unconditional  nature  of  a  causal  sequence 
in  the  external  world,  as  against  the  conditional 
nature  of  it  in  the  other  case  ;  the  condition  to 
the  effective  operation  of  a  motive — as  distin- 
guished from  a  motor — is  the  acquiescence  of  the 
first  cause  upon  which  that  motive  is  operating. 

To  the  foregoing  argument  it  may  be  objected 
that  by  expressly  regarding  the  human  mind  as 
a  first  cause  of  its  own  volitions,  I  imply  that  that 
mind  can  itself  have  had  no  cause,  which  appears 
to  be  self-evidently  absurd.  But  here  again  the 
absurdity  only  arises  from  our  inveterate  habit  of 
regarding  the  principle  of  causation  as  logically 
prior  to  that  of  mind.  If  we  expressly  refuse  to 
do  this,  there  is  nothing  absurd  in  supposing  the 
principle  of  mind  wherever  it  occurs,  as  itself 
uncaused.  For  if,  as  we  are  now  supposing,  this 
principle  is  identical  with  that  of  causation,  to  say 


The  Will  in  relation  to  Monism.   161 

that  any  mind  is  caused  would  be  to  say  that 
a  cause  is  the  cause  of  itself,  which  would 
be  really  absurd.  Under  the  present  point  of 
view,  therefore,  it  would  be  a  meaningless  question 
to  ask  for  the  cause  of  a  human  mind,  since,  ex 
hypothesi.,  a  human  mind  is  a  part  of  the  self- 
existing  substance,  although  not  on  this  account 
self-existing  as  to  its  individual  personality.  As 
argued  in  a  previous  chapter,  the  personality  appears 
to  arise  on  account  of  circumscription,  or  the 
isolation  of  a  constituent  part  of  the  World-eject. 
Therefore,  although  it  may  be  reasonable  to  ask 
for  a  cause  of  this  circumscription — or  of  the  per- 
sonality— it  is  not  reasonable  to  ask  for  a  cause 
of  the  substance  which  is  thus  circumscribed,  or  of 
the  quality  of  spontaneity  which  that  substance 
exhibits. 

I  will  now  state  the  whole  case  in  another  way. 
When  we  regard  the  facts  of  volition  from  the 
stand-point  of  psychology,  the  only  theory  of 
them  which  is  open  to  us  is,  as  we  have  before 
seen,  that  of  determinism.  Moreover,  within  these 
limits  that  theory  is  perfectly  true.  Psychology, 
as  such,  cannot  recognize  any  principle  more 
ultimate  than  natural  causation,  seeing  that,  like 
any  other  of  her  sisters  in  the  family  of  sciences, 
her  whole  work  and  duty  are  confined  to  the 
investigation  of  this  principle.  But,  just  as  in  the 
case  of  all  the  other  sciences,  when  her  investiga- 
tions have  been  pushed  to  the  point  where  they 
encounter  the  problem  of  explaining  this  principle 

M 


162  Monism. 

itself,  her  investigations  must  necessarily  cease ; 
this  principle  is  for  all  the  sciences  the  ultimate 
datum,  behind  which  they  cannot  go  without 
ceasing  to  be  sciences.  But  it  does  not  follow 
that  because  the  area  of  science  is  limited  by  that 
of  causation,  therefore  we  are  precluded  from 
asking  any  questions  as  to  the  nature  of  this 
ultimate  datum.  Of  course  any  questions  which 
we  may  thus  ask  cannot  possibly  be  answered 
by  science ;  they  are  questions  of  philosophy, 
in  the  consideration  of  which  science,  from  her 
very  nature  and  essential  limitation  of  her  office, 
can  have  no  voice.  Now,  if  on  taking  up  the 
principle  of  causation  where  this  is  left  by  science 
— viz.  as  the  ultimate  or  unanalyzable  datum  of 
experience,  upon  which  all  her  investigations  are 
founded,  and  by  which  they  are  all  limited- 
philosophy  finds  any  reason  to  surmise  that  it 
is  resolvable  into  the  principle  of  mind,  philosophy 
is  thus  able  to  suggest  that  any  distinction  between 
mental  processes  as  determinate  or  free,  is  really 
a  meaningless  distinction.  For,  according  to  this 
suggestion,  the  issue  is  no  longer  as  to  whether 
these  processes  are  caused  or  uncaused ;  the  very 
idea  of  cause  has  been  abolished  as  one  which 
belongs  only  to  that  lower  level  of  inquiry  with 
which  science,  or  sensuous  experience,  is  concerned. 
Here,  no  doubt,  the  question  is  a  thoroughly  real 
one,  and,  as  shown  in  previous  chapters,  can  only 
be  answered  in  the  way  of  determinism.  But  so 
soon  as  we  ascend  to  the  philosophical  theory  of 


The  Will  in  relation  to  Monism.   163 

Monism,  and  so  transcend  the  conditions  of 
sensuous  experience,  the  question  whether  volitions 
are  caused  or  uncaused  becomes,  as  I  have  said, 
a  meaningless  question,  or  a  question  the  terms 
of  which  are  not  correctly  stated.  If  it  be  the 
case  that  all  causality  is  of  a  nature  psychical, 
volition  and  causation  are  one  and  the  same  thing, 
differing  only  in  relation  to  our  modes  of  appre- 
hension. It  would  therefore  be  equally  meaningless 
to  say  that  either  is  the  cause  of  the  other — just 
as  it  would  be  equally  meaningless  to  say  that 
neurosis  is  the  cause  of  psychosis,  or  that  psychosis 
is  the  cause  of  neurosis.  Or  thus,  if  volition  and 
causation  are  one  and  the  same  thing,  the  only 
reason  why  they  ever  appear  diverse  is  because  the 
one  is  known  ontologically,  while  the  other  is 
known  phenomenally.  Were  it  possible  that  the 
orbit  of  my  own  personality  could  be  widened  so 
as  to  include  within  my  own  subjectivity  the  whole 
universe  of  causality,  I  should  find— according  to 
Monism— that  all  causation  would  become  trans- 
formed into  volition.  Hence,  the  only  reason  why 
there  now  appears  to  be  so  great  an  antithesis 
between  these  two  principles,  is  because  the 
volition  which  is  going  on  outside  of  my  own 
consciousness  can  only  be  known  to  me  objectively, 
— or  at  most  ejectively,— on  which  account  the 
principle  of  causality  appears  to  me  phenomenally 
as  the  most  ultimate,  or  most  unanalyzable, 
principle  in  the  phenomenal  universe. 


M  2 


164  Monism. 

Upon  the  whole,  then,  I  conclude  that  this  is  the 
teaching  of  Monism.  If  we  view  the  facts  of  human 
volition  relatively,  or  within  the  four  corners  of 
psychological  science,  there  is  no  escape  from  the 
conclusion  that  they  are  determined  with  all  the 
rigour  which  belongs  to  natural  causation  in 
general.  For  every  sequence  of  mental  changes 
and  every  sequence  of  cerebral  changes,  although 
phenomenally  so  diverse,  are  taken  by  this  theory 
to  be  ontologically  identical ;  and  therefore  the 
sequence  of  mental  changes  must  be  determined 
with  the  same  degree  of  '  necessity '  as  is  that  of 
the  cerebral  changes.  In  short,  mental  causation 
is  taken  to  be  but  the  obverse  aspect  of  physical 
causation,  and,  as  previously  remarked,  it  is  im- 
possible that  the  doctrine  of  determinism  could  be 
taught  in  a  manner  more  emphatic.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  theory  of  Monism  is  bound  to  go 
further  than  this.  From  the  very  fact  of  its  having 
gone  so  far  as  to  identify  all  physical  processes 
with  psychical  processes,  it  cannot  refuse  to  take 
the  further  and  final  step  of  identifying  the  most 
ultimate  known  principle  of  the  one  with  the  most 
ultimate  known  principle  of  the  other ;  it  is  bound 
to  recognize  in  natural  causation  the  phenomenal 
aspect  of  that  which  is  known  ontologically  as 
volition.  But  if  these  two  principles  are  thus  re- 
garded as  identical,  it  clearly  becomes  as  unmeaning 
to  ask  whether  the  one  is  the  cause  of  the  other,  as 
it  would  be  to  ask  whether  the  one  wills  the  other. 
For,  ex  hypothesi,  the  two  things  being  one  thing. 


The  Will  in  relation  to  Monism.    165 

or  but  different  modes  of  viewing  the  same  thing, 
it  becomes  mere  nonsense  to  speak  of  either 
determining  the  other  ;  they  are  both  but  different 
expressions  of  the  same  ultimate  fact,  namely  the 
fact  of  Being  as  Being. 

If  this  result  should  be  deemed  unsatisfactory  on 
account  of  its  vagueness,  let  it  be  remembered  that 
nothing  is  gained  on  the  side  of  clearness  by  the 
converse  supposition — viz.  that  priority  should  be 
assigned  to  the  principle  of  causality.  For,  if  we 
say  it  is  inconceivable  that  anything  should  come 
into  existence  without  a  cause — not  even  excepting 
the  principle  of  mind  itself — then  the  question 
immediately  arises — If  all  volition  is  caused,  what 
is  the  cause  of  volition  ?  What  caused  this  cause  ? 
And  so  on  till  we  arrive  at  the  question,  What 
caused  the  principle  of  causality  ?  which  is  absurd. 
So  that  whether  we  regard  mind  as  prior  to  cause, 
or  cause  as  prior  to  mind,  or  neither  as  prior  to  the 
other,  we  arrive  at  precisely  the  same  difficulty. 
And  the  difficulty  is  a  hopeless  one,  because  it  con- 
cerns the  ultimate  question  of  Being  as  Being,  or 
the  final  mystery  of  things. 

Or,  to  state  the  matter  in  another  way.  An 
explanation  means  the  reference  of  observed  effects 
to  known  causes,  or  the  inclusion  of  previously 
unknown  causes  among  causes  better  known.  Hence 
it  is  obvious,  from  the  very  meaning  of  what  we 
call  an  explanation,  that  at  the  base  of  all  possible 
explanations  there  must  lie  a  great  Inexplicable, 
which,  just  because  more  ultimate  than  any  of  our 
M  3 


166  Monism. 

possible  explanations,  does  not  itself  require  to  be 
explained.  To  suppose  that  it  does  require  to  be 
explained,  would  be  to  suppose,  that  there  is 
something  still  more  ultimate  into  which,  if  known, 
this  Inexplicable  could  be  merged.  Hence,  unless 
we  postulate  an  infinite  series  of  possible  explana- 
tions, there  must  be  a  basal  mystery  somewhere, 
which,  in  virtue  of  its  constituting  the  ground 
of  all  possible  explanations,  cannot  be,  and  does  not 
require  to  be,  itself  explained.  What  is  this  basal 
mystery?  Materialism  supposes  it  to  be  lodged 
in  Matter  to  the  exclusion  of  Mind,  while 
Idealism  in  its  extreme  forms  takes  the  con- 
verse view.  Theism  supposes  that  it  is  an  intel- 
ligent Person,  who  is  held — and  logically  enough — 
not  to  be  able  to  give  any  explanation  of  his  own 
existence ;  he  is,  as  it  is  said,  self-existent,  and,  if 
asked  to  give  any  account  of  his  being,  would  only 
be  able  to  re-state  the  fact  of  his  being  in  the  words, 
•  I  am  that  I  am.'  Lastly,  Pantheism,  or  Monism, 
supposes  the  ultimate  mystery  to  be  lodged  in  the 
universe  as  a  whole.  Now,  in  the  present  con- 
nexion the  question  before  us  is  simply  this — Are 
we  to  regard  the  principle  of  causality  or  the 
principle  of  mind  as  the  ultimate  mystery  ?  And 
to  this  question  I  answer  that  to  me  it  appears 
most  reasonable  to  assign  priority  to  mind.  For, 
on  the  one  hand,  our  only  knowledge  of  causation 
is  empirical,  while  even  as  such  it  is  only  possible 
in  the  same  way  as  our  knowledge  of  objective 
existence  in  general  is  possible — namely,  by  way  of 


The  Will  in  relation  to  Monism,    167 

inference  from  our  own  mental  modifications,  which 
therefore  must  necessarily  have  priority  so  far  as 
we  are  ourselves  concerned.  Next,  on  the  other 
hand,  even  if  we  were  to  grant  that  the  principle  of 
causality  is  the  prius,  or  the  ultimate  and  inex- 
plicable mystery,  I  cannot  see  that  it  is  really 
available  to  explain  the  fact  of  personality.  To 
me  it  appears  that,  within  the  range  of  human 
observation,  this  is  the  fact  that  most  wears  the 
appearance  of  finality,  or  of  that  unanalyzable  and 
inexplicable  nature  which  we  are  bound  to  believe 
must  belong  to  the  ultimate  mystery  of  Being. 
But,  be  this  as  it  may,  the  speculative  difficulty  of 
assigning  priority  to  mind  is  certainly  no  greater 
than  that  of  assigning  it  to  causality ;  and  this,  as 
above  remarked,  is  a  sufficient  answer  to  the 
question  before  us.  According  to  Monism,  how- 
ever, there  is  no  need  to  assign  priority  to  either 
principle,  seeing  that  one  is  but  a  phenomenal  ex- 
pression of  the  other. 

Only  one  further  question  remains  to  be  con- 
sidered. From  what  I  have  just  said  on  the  sub- 
ject of  Personality,  it  will  be  apparent  that  the 
theory  of  Monism  is  in  conflict  with  that  of  Theism 
only  in  so  far  as  personality  appears  to  imply 
limitation.  This  is  a  point  which  I  have  previously 
considered  in  these  pages  (Chapter  iv,  p.  109), 
with  the  result  of  appearing  to  show  that  the 
conflict  is  one  which  would  probably  vanish  could 
we  rise  above  the  necessary  limitations  of  human 
thought.  Therefore,  it  here  seems  worth  while  to 


i68  Monism. 

ask,  What  can  be  said  by  the  philosophical  theory 
of  Monism  to  the  old  theological  dilemma  touching 
free-will  and  predestination?  Or,  even  apart  from 
any  question  of  Theism,  what  position  does 
Monism  suppose  the  psychical  activity  of  man  to 
hold  in  relation  to  that  of  the  universe  ?  Of  course 
the  latter  statement  of  the  question  is  included  in 
the  former ;  and,  therefore,  we  may  present  it 
thus ; — If  the  human  will  is  free,  and  the  theory 
of  Theism  substantially  true,  how  are  we  to 
reconcile  the  fact  with  the  theory  ? 

According  to  the  theory  of  Theism  as  sanctioned 
by  Monism,  what  we  apprehend  as  natural  causa- 
tion is  the  obverse  of  a  part  of  a  summum  genus — 
i.e.  the  part  falling  within  human  observation  whose 
whole  is  the  Absolute  Volition.  This  Volition, 
being  absolute,  can  nowhere  meet  with  restraint ; 
it  is  therefore  absolutely  free,  and  can  never  con- 
tradict itself.  Thus,  those  circumscribed  portions 
of  it  which  we  know  as  human  minds — and 
which,  on  account  of  being  so  circumscribed,  are 
free  within  themselves — do  not  in  their  freedom 
conflict  with  the  Absolute  Volition.  The  Absolute 
Volition  and  the  Relative  Volition  are  always  in 
unison.  It  is  not  that  the  Absolute  Volition 
unconditionally  determines  the  Relative  Volition — 
else  the  Relative  Volition  would  not  be  free  ;  but  it 
is  that  the  Absolute  Volition  invariably  assents  to 
the  Relative  Volition  as  to  the  activity  of  an  integral 
part  of  itself.  This  will  be  at  once  evident  if  we 
consider  that  our  only  idea  of  determination — i.  e. 


The  Will  in  relation  to  Monism.    169 

causation — is,  upon  the  theistic  theory,  derived 
from  our  observing  the  consistency  of  the  Divine 
Will,  whether  as  revealed  subjectively  in  the  causal 
operations  of  our  own  minds,  or  objectively  in  the 
causal  operations  of  Nature.  Therefore,  the  idea 
of  causation  as  between  the  Absolute  Volition  and 
the  Relative  Volition  is  an  idea  destitute  of  meaning. 
One  Relative  Volition  may  act  causally  on  another 
Relative  Volition,  because  each  is  wholly  external  to 
each.  But  all  Relative  Volitions  are  constituent 
parts  of  the  Absolute  Volition,  which,  therefore, 
cannot  act  causally  on  them,  though  it  always  acts 
substantially  with  them.  Or,  otherwise  phrased,  if 
the  subject  is  a  constituent  part  of  its  own  World- 
eject — the  volition  of  which  is  always  self-consistent 
—it  follows  that  the  volition  of  the  subject  must 
always  be  coincident  with  that  of  its  World-eject  ; 
and  this  without  being  determined  in  any  other 
sense  than  the  smaller  size  of  a  part  can  be  said  to 
be  determined  by  the  larger  size  of  its  whole :  i.e.  the 
determination — if  we  choose  so  to  call  it — is  not  a 
causal  one,  but  arises  immediately  from  the  inherent 
nature  of  the  case.  The  Absolute  Volition  within 
itself  is  free ;  the  Relative  Volition  within  itself  is 
free  ;  but  there  can  be  no  conflict  between  these  two 
freedoms.  For,  if  there  were  a  conflict,  it  must  be 
caused  ;  but  where  is  the  cause  of  this  conflict  to 
come  from  ?  Not  from  the  Absolute  Volition,  which 
is  everywhere  self-consistent  ;  not  from  the  Relative 
Volition,  which  is  wholly  contained  within  the  Abso- 
lute. Thus,  regarded  from  within  its  own  system, 


170  Monism. 

the  Relative  Volition  is  free  ;  while,  regarded  from 
the  system  of  its  World-eject,  the  Relative  Volition 
is  predestined.  But  the  freedom  is  not  incom- 
patible with  the  predestination,  nor  the  predesti- 
nation with  the  freedom.  They  stand  to  each 
other  in  the  relation  of  complementary  truths,  the 
apparent  contradiction  of  which  arises  only  from 
the  apparently  fundamental  antithesis  between 
mind  and  cause  which  it  is  the  privilege  of  Monism 
to  abolish. 


Oxforfr 

HORACE    HART,    PRINTER   TO  THE   UNIVERSITY 


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